Another great way to poison yourself and neighboring - 3rd word battery recycle

[Miyuki]

Just met this video on YouTube
In Europe we have banned products without suitable replacements, and they just wash battery sludge to ground and use no protection at all, what a different planet

https://www.youtube.com/embed/afwO_MZjRjA

[I wanted a rude username]

Europe went through this stage too. More recently than you might think.

Pakistan and similar countries are at least developing quickly, pulled along by First World technology. Give them time.

[Miyuki]

I know it is just few generations when similar levels of "safety" was common, but it was mostly because they was not aware of dangers
Such like xrays, asbestos and so
But today "we" have opposite extreme, replace many reliable tools and machines with unreliable, because old have "dangerous" materials inside, but many new safe alternatives are unreliable and work just fraction of time old equipment last

[Miyuki]

Survivor's bias. Old tools that are still around are those who survived, and they don't represent quality of all used tools.

I dont say that all old tools are great
But replacing something old working just because something is new and painted green
I agree, many modern devices have high quality and can last for decades

But cases when you need to replace totally functional device, for example fridge, because it uses "old" refrigerant, it need no service, can work next 10 years, but will be scraped and new must be made, this in most cases have no sense.
It is similar with lights and other devices. And many of these replacements are no reliable at all.

From this point of view battery recycling as they do it is good, just do it safe way when dangers are known

[Dabbot]

They certainly are aware of the dangers, but these poor people have little to no choice.



There is no amount of RoHS which will mitigate the serious implications of what you see happening at the 9 minute mark.

[soldar]

Europe went through this stage too. More recently than you might think.

Pakistan and similar countries are at least developing quickly, pulled along by First World technology. Give them time.

Several thoughts and considerations that come to my mind:

Humans are very short sighted. And very selfish.

Countries that today are rich had similar working conditions, child labor, etc. It is not a voluntary choice. It is survival.

Head over to https://www.shorpy.com/ and see thousands of high quality photos of what everyday life was like in America between 1850 and 1950. Children working in the mines and in the looms.  Those parents loved their children and their futures but they had no other choice.

Shorpy was a child greaser in a coal mine.  He died in a mine accident at the age of 31.

One thing we need to realize is that all humanity is in this together. We cannot carve a clean corner for ourselves while we let the rest of the world starve because they will do whatever they need to do to survive.

The gap in standard of living is growing larger, not only between rich and poor countries but within countries. You cannot preach ecology and other long term considerations to people who are living on the streets or close and who do not know where their next meal might come from. They will do whatever they need to do to survive just as any one of us would do.

Our individual views and our countries' policies are just as short sighted as those of the poor people we criticize. Our policies are directed at increasing our wealth even at the expense of the poorer countries. What do we expect them to do? Starve and die?

Even within our own countries inequality is increasing at a shameful rate. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. People who do that kind of thing to survive do it, not because they are bad people but because they know of no other way to survive. The best thing we can do for the future of humanity and of the world is realize we are all in the same boat and follow policies of cooperation and help the poorer countries. Unfortunately we are mostly doing the opposite while we talk a lot about global warming and do a few insignificant, feel-good things.