All language subtitles for Death.By.Design.2016

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SUE WILLIAMS: So, I just
wanted to ask you,

how many electronic devices
do you have, like phones,
computers?

Oh, my God. Um,
definitely, more than ten.

iPad, phone, PlayStation

and I have
a little tablet.

I'm pretty close with my
phone. It doesn't really
leave my hand very much.

My iPhone is the most
critical device I have.

WILLIAMS: Do you love
that phone a lot?

Um, I'm pretty
attached to it, yes.

(LAUGHING)

I'd be lost without it,
probably.

WILLIAMS: I'm also attached
to my phone, my
computer, my tablet.

And it amazes me how,
in just 20 years,

they've completely changed
the way I live
and communicate.

Our devices are
sleek and elegant.

We store our lives
in a beautiful cloud.

I started making this film
to explore the impact of
our digital revolution.

And then, secrets the industry
tried to hide for years

began to spill out.

How our electronics are
made and unmade,

is dirty and dangerous.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

It's a global story
of damaged lives,

environmental destruction,

and devices that
are designed to die.

MA JUN: In China,
massive industrialization

has put a huge pressure
on our ecosystem and
on the environment.

When it comes
to IT industry,

many people think
it's, uh...

It's green or
naturally it's green.

Or some people think it's,
even think it's "virtual."

But in our investigation,
we've found
it's not like that.

This pollution is
having all kinds of
different consequences

but I think that
the top impact,

the biggest impact
is on public health.

We have nearly 300
million rural residents

who don't have
access to sufficient
safe drinking water.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

MA JUN: I keep thinking
about the moment

when I face all
this environmental
and social damage

on that river,
you know,

which carries all this waste
to the lake beside
the Yangtze River.

And these old ladies

suddenly kneeled down
on their knees
in front of me.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

MA JUN: I don't have
any government
administrative power,

I don't have much financial
resources to deal with this,

but I told myself,
at that moment,

in front of those ladies,
I told myself that, uh,

at least I need to
bring the message out.

I need to make sure that
all the users
of all these gadgets,

they need to be
informed about this.

You can see the farmland
here. This is what this
valley used to look like,

uh, just full of...

This was the richest
agricultural valley
in the country.

You can see why people,
once they saw this,

wanted to live here.

I moved to this area in 1969,
to go to law school,

because I wanted to help
people who didn't have

the means to
represent themselves.

It was a time when most
people had not heard
of the semiconductor industry.

But within a few years
people started
seeing the birth

of what has become the,
you know,
global electronics industry.

Top names were companies...
Hewlett-Packard, Apple,

uh, Intel, Advanced
Micro Devices...

Virtually, the who's who
of the electronics industry.

And of course, the granddaddy
of them all was IBM.

ART RODRIGUEZ:
When I got hired at IBM,
that was great.

That was the company
to work for at the time.

I could go anyplace.
"Where do you work?"
"IBM."

I don't need an ID.
You just write a check.

It was that easy.
IBM had that much clout.

MIKE GRAY: I was the first
microprocessor buyer for IBM.

In the early '80s, the idea
of a personal computer

which was an oxymoron, right.
I mean "personal computer"?

What would you
use it for anyway?

But it got legs.

When we started
the PC business,

the first year,
they shipped 50,000 units.

And so we went from 1,000
a week to 40,000 a week.

And at that point
the PC was launched.

TED SMITH: From almost
the very beginning,
you heard electronics

and semiconductor production
was a clean industry.

They said it was as
clean as a hospital

but what they weren't telling
people was that it was really
a chemical-handling industry,

and that the magic of
making these micro-circuits

relied on the use of hundreds,
if not thousands,
of very toxic chemicals.

And that's why they
have clean rooms,

that's why they have
bunny suits to try to
protect the chips.

It was never designed
to protect the workers,

it was always designed to
protect the product itself.

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, my God.
There was a lot of
different chemicals.

They built the disk drives.

We'd have to strip 'em out
and then we'd, literally,

have to dip 'em
in sulfuric acid...

And with a sponge,
you just...

With sulfuric...
I didn't know what it was.

I just knew it
stunk really bad,

and you couldn't get it on
your skin 'cause it would burn
you like nobody's business.

SMITH: What happened was
people started getting sick

with very strange
kinds of illnesses,

things that didn't seem to
make a lot of sense and
didn't seem to hang together.

But increasingly,
as this happened
more and more,

there was a small group of
people that began to think

that maybe this was
related to the chemical
exposure on the job.

YVETTE FLORES:
Wanna put music on?
MARK: Yeah.

FLORES: All right, go on,
turn on the music for Mom.

Put some good
music on today.

(BURNING DOWN THE
HOUSE PLAYING)

Right there.

Right there.
Okay, put this on, mijo.

Here's your thing,
I charged it up.

All right, you gonna sing?
Yeah.

Okay, go!

FLORES: In 1975,
I was 18 years old

and I started working
in the electronics field.

I went to Spectra-Physics
and they just hired
me just like that.

I was making
the end of the laser

and I would have to
mix up this chemical

and I used to
call it "green gunk"...

(LAUGHS) ...and
get the consistency,

and then put it
into a spray gun.

And I would have
to heat that up after
I glued it on together.

That was just all day,
that I did that.

Yvette didn't know the
material she was using

turns out to be
probably in the vicinity
of 50% lead oxide.

She didn't know she
was exposed to lead.
They didn't tell her that.

I got pregnant
with Mark in 1979

and that was full term,
nine months,

and we were just
really happy about it.

He doesn't even know to
cross the street and not
know a car is coming to stop.

Going to the restroom,
you know, I have to
go with him in there.

So I have to assist
him with everything.

Who's number one?
Mark is.

You better
know it, huh.

If I knew what I know now

I would've ran out of
Spectra-Physics at the time.

It was unnecessary.

It just, it breaks my heart
that I could've avoided this.

There you go!

HAWES: We are filing a
lawsuit against her employer.

And it's a lawsuit
for her son,

who was born with severe
developmental disabilities.

And it's a suit concealment of
systemic chemical poisoning

in the case of Yvette and for
the direct injuries to Mark.

FLORES: Mark's condition
isn't like a cold,

take antibiotics
and you're gonna be
fine in five days.

This is lifelong.

Your love

just overrides all that and
you do what you gotta do.

To this day I still do that.

I'm sorry, I'm getting
a little emotional.

Count. One, two...

Three.
Keep going.

Two.
No, four.

Four.

HAWES: We've known about
the bad effects of lead,

including
reproductive effects,
since the era of the Romans.

There was an OSHA
standard in place

requiring hazard
communication
and medical removal.

They didn't do
any of those things.

Do I think this
was preventable?
Oh yeah, I do.

I discovered IBM had a
Corporate Mortality file,

which they kept
for 30 years.

And it kept track of
the causes of death
of their employees.

RICHARD CLAPP:
The most dramatic findings
were about cancer.

For the company as a whole
this was 33,000 deaths

that were in this
Corporate Mortality file,

so it included people who
had worked all over the U.S.

But then when you look
at specific plants like
the IBM plant in San Jose,

there were some extraordinary
excess causes of death.

One was brain cancer.

Another was
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Another was
melanoma of the skin.

And in the women,
breast cancer

was three and fourfold
higher than expected.

That was the heart in
this San Jose lawsuit.

NEWSCASTER:
In a Santa Clara
courtroom today,

the first trial out of more
than 200 similar lawsuits
filed against IBM.

Former IBM workers
Jim Moore and Alida Hernandez

say they developed cancer
from exposure
to toxic chemicals

at IBM's San Jose facility
in the late '70s
to early '90s.

IBM literally
tried to prevent

the results of the mortality
analysis from ever
seeing the light of day.

In fact, they went
to the judge and said,

"This can't be
used in this case.

"Alida Hernandez is not dead.
She's gonna be
in the courtroom."

And not only was it
not relevant,
the judge said

it might prejudice the jury
if they saw what these
excess causes of death were.

And so he denied
use of it in the court.

LINDA GREER: Many of
the brands will respond
to questions by saying,

"No one has ever proved to
me that a single person

"has died from exposure
to these chemicals

"either within,
inside our factories or
outside of the factories.

"End of discussion."

But that's not the way
that we approach

environmental or occupational
health in the world.

We are not flying
blind here at all,

especially on the chemicals
at issue here in the
electronics industry.

Actually, on most of the
common chemicals used in
all industrial manufacturing,

we've been at this
work for 40 years.

If you look at
the publicity
generated by IBM,

you'd think we
lost everything

and that simply
is not correct.

After the trial,
IBM matters were resolved

for hundreds of people whose
claims did not go to trial.

WILLIAMS: What can you tell
us about the settlements?

I'm not gonna be able to
talk about any of the
resolutions of the cases

and I won't.

WILLIAMS: Can you give
any details at all?

Did you have to agree not
to reveal the details
as part of the settlements?

All I can say is that the
matters were resolved.

That's what
I'm allowed to say.

It is kind of ironic
to have the...

the Lucky supermarket
on such an unlucky site.

This whole area was
a contaminated site.
It still is.

And there were many
companies in here

that all of whom
created, uh, this...

toxic nightmare.

There was an arrogance,
a hubris

to the leadership
of this industry

that was basically
saying to the people
of this valley,

"You should be lucky
that we're here."

And it really enraged me.

Here in Silicon Valley

chip companies and
the other electronics
production companies

used hundreds,
if not thousands
of toxic chemicals.

And most of the chemicals,

once they're used in
making the components,

needed to be
disposed of as waste.

The companies ended up
storing them in underground
storage tanks

all over the valley.

But the brilliant people
who were designing
these systems,

didn't quite think
through all the way

was that the solvents
were really good at
dissolving things.

And so when you
put them into a tank,

eventually, they are
going to eat their way
through the tank.

Solvents that the electronics
industry used in production
in Silicon Valley

in the '70s and '80s
are now in the groundwater.

And if you think about putting
a drop of ink in a bathtub,

um, that spreads really
quickly and it's really hard
to get that drop of ink back.

That's what we're
dealing with except
we're dealing with

multiples of gallons
of this stuff that is
in the groundwater.

SMITH: In late 1981

there were over 100 families
in one little neighborhood

who had serious problems.

And the State Health
Department discovered that
the families that were

drinking the most heavily
contaminated water

had significantly higher
rates of miscarriages
and birth defects

than did people in
other neighborhoods.

ANN BLAKE:
The chemical industry
will often say,

if I had a dime for
every time I heard this,

that even water can kill you,
the most non-toxic thing.

Of course it can,
but only if you stick your
face down in the bathtub

or fall into a, you know,
fall into a large body
of water.

So that is the traditional
approach to toxicology,

is that the more stuff
you are exposed to,
the more harm it causes you.

But what we are seeing in,

particularly around cancer
and around hormone
disrupting chemicals,

is that it's when you're
exposed to it,
the time of exposure.

So if you're
in third trimester

and you get even
a part per billion,

or part per trillion
exposure...

It can actually cause
significant damage.

SMITH: We formed
the Silicon Valley
Toxics Coalition.

And we did a summer
organizing project

getting people to
sign petitions,
asking the EPA to step in

with their authority under
their Superfund program.

ALL: (CHANTING)
No CFCs, no CFCs.

SMITH: Then I went to
a meeting in Washington

and presented these
thousands of petitions saying,

"We need EPA to come in,
it's time for EPA to
exercise your authority."

And to everybody's
great surprise...
they agreed to do that.

So Hewlett-Packard
became a Superfund site.

Intel became a Superfund site.

National Semiconductor.
Advanced Micro Devices,
IBM...

You name it, they were there
and they are all
Superfund sites.

The cost of clean-up
for IBM as well as all
the other companies

has been tremendous.

It's an enormously slow
and tedious process.

If you look
right over here also,

this is a major
residential neighborhood

just directly across
the street from
this industrial site.

Most of the people
living here today

are unaware of this
huge toxic plume.

And those same chemicals
that are still

right under where
we're standing

are now beginning
to seep back up

out of the groundwater,
through the soil,

and are actually coming
into the offices

of these software
engineers at Google.

And this is the one that
EPA said might take
300 years to clean up.

This is so complicated,
the devastation
is so enormous...

that we're really talking
centuries of clean-up,
not just years or decades.

Every time we've been able
to identify a problem,

companies have made
the argument that we've had
problems in the past but

we've learned from those
and now everything's fine.

The problem is that
it just keeps reoccurring.

When companies started
moving away from Silicon
Valley to China,

I think that they've been
only too happy to have
the government off their back.

The Chinese government
made an offer

to multinational corporations
that they couldn't refuse.

GRAY: You need land,
and you need money,

and you need
government approval,

and you need lots of people
to put it all together.

Well, they have
all of that in China.

It went insane in the '90s.

I look back now and just
kind of shake my head
and say...

"How did that happen?"

STEVE JOBS: We are
calling it "iPhone".

Today, Apple is going to
reinvent the phone.

GRAY: If you look
at the launch
of the Apple 5,

they were making
10 million in one week.

So, I mean, hey, you know,
how do you wrap your head
around these numbers?

One of the primary
purposes of outsourcing

is to enable
companies like Apple

to make, what are essentially,
unreasonable demands

on manufacturers that they
wouldn't and couldn't make

if they actually had to
employ the workers directly.

Apple doesn't have to worry

about what it means to workers
when they insist on a tripling

of the pace of
iPhone production.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

(REPORTER SPEAKING MANDARIN)

NEWSCASTER: ...workers died
and 15 others were injured

after an explosion
at a Foxconn factory...

(REPORTER SPEAKING MANDARIN)

NEWSCASTER: The accident
occurred at around 7:00 pm
in a polishing workshop.

It appears to have been
triggered by an explosion of
combustible dust in a duct.

GARRETT BROWN: No one
should be surprised
that aluminum dust,

if it's in a high
enough concentration

and there is
an ignition source,

it will produce
explosion and fire.

This is a hazard which
is extremely well known.

So the fact that
Apple suppliers,

uh, had an explosion
in Chengdu in that plant,

means that they had
very poor housekeeping,

very poor
production processes.

That's terrible.

What's completely unacceptable
is that five months later,

at another plant, but within
the Apple supply chain

they had another
explosion and fire.

It's outrageously
inexcusable

that they had a second one
five months later.

They've set up these
supply chains exactly
the way they want them.

They monitor these
supply chains with
exacting scrutiny

so they know exactly what's
going into their products
at every point along the way.

GRAY: I find it really
hard to believe

for any of those companies to
say they don't know where some
of their stuff comes from.

I find it really
hard to believe, right,

because they do.

Now, they may not
want to admit it...

publicly, fine.

You don't have to
but they should know,

uh, where it comes from.

Any good supply chain
practitioner knows that.

WILLIAMS: How often do you
upgrade your phone?
Every couple of years.

WILLIAMS:
Do you upgrade often?

Uh, when I have
the money to, yeah.

Probably every year.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

WILLIAMS: So you upgrade
pretty often, or...

Oh, yes, you have to.
Yeah, you have to.

Well, we have a table
at all iFixit of the guns.

It will show you how
to disassemble
the whole thing.

So I have an
iPhone 5 here

and I'm gonna show you
a little bit about

what's inside,
what makes it tick.

And some of the design
choices that Apple made

putting it together.

So the first thing Apple
has on the bottom is

two proprietary,
pentalobe screws.

This is a security screw
that Apple designed

to keep people
out of the phone.

Once you get the phone open,
we can start to see the guts.

This isn't really a phone,
it's pretty much
a full-blown computer.

To make your phone last
for eight hours,
you need a really big battery.

Batteries in phones
last about 400 charges.

Every cell phone I've
ever had you just
pop the back off,

you could
pull the battery out,
swap a new battery in,

every year or two
you'd have to
replace the battery.

Apple has decided
with the iPod and,
now, the iPhone

that they don't
like that model.

So what they are doing
is building the batteries
into the phone

and using proprietary
screws on there

in an attempt to limit
the lifespan of the phone
to about 18 months,

which is around the
time when they
have a new phone

and they want you to
buy a new one anyway.

LUKE SOULES: iFixit is
a company that wants to
see everything get fixed,

so we show people
how to fix things

and provide the parts,
tools, and guides to
enable them to do so.

Helping everyone
fix everything.

That's the challenge.

It's a big challenge
'cause there's millions
of devices out there.

I'd say Luke and I
are reluctant capitalists.

We get excited
selling screwdrivers

even though that seems
like a boring product

because we're selling
people a capability

where they're able to do
something that they
wouldn't have otherwise.

We wanna make it simple
and easy for people to
repair their own stuff.

The amount of raw materials
that go into the products
that we use are staggering.

It's over 500 pounds of raw
material that go into making
an eight-ounce cell phone.

SOULES: So, here's an
example of a circuit
board in this e-waste bin.

This is out of an Apple laptop
from a few years ago.

Even if you make
this circuit board

in the most
environmentally friendly way,

it's still going to use
a ton of water,
a ton of m...

Probably literally a ton
of water, lots and
lots of materials.

We got the new MacBook.

What do we know so far?

Cost is a bump and
a flash-speed bump.

Brand new MacBook,
nothing is different.
(LAUGHTER)

The electronics industry
is closed in ways that

traditional American
manufacturers aren't.

They're selling you a thing
and they're saying,

"Well, you have it but
you don't really own it.

"There is no way we are gonna
ever sell you the screwdriver

"to be able to get
into the phone."

Ford would never
sell you a car and say,

"We're not gonna
make tires available

"to keep your car running
after 30,000 miles."

You have an entire
ecosystem, an entire industry
that's built on secrecy,

and we're one organization
that's trying to pry open
the hood a little bit,

show people what's inside.

SOULES: We've kind of been
conditioned by manufacturers
and brands to

leave yourself on the outside.

"Don't worry about
the details.
We make this product.

"We give it to you and
you just use this product.

"And when it stops working
you go buy a new one."

KYLE WIENS: They are pushing
us into a model where

products are
completely disposable.

Globally, we manufactured
about 1.6 billion
cell phones in 2014.

And it just keeps going up
and up and you have to ask

at some point like,
"What is too many phones?"

SOULES: When we originally
started iFixit, it was just
a way to provide

people with some solution
to fix broken devices.

And over time, we've realized,
both the manufacturing and

the environmental problems
are a huge concern.

Over the last few years,
I've been to China
on a pretty regular basis...

A lot of that related
to our tool manufacturing.

We're looking at getting some
circuit boards manufactured.

This is the big
rechargeable battery and then

this is the main
circuit board in here.
Wow.

So considering
it's just a flashlight,

you can see it's
a surprisingly, uh,

complex circuit board.

And I've got this
basic schematic
of the circuit board.

Once, we decide,
we'll leave them with the

full information,
would be the idea.

Finding a supplier that is
environmentally friendly,

has good quality and has
reasonable pricing,

all three of those at once,
is probably going
to be a challenge.

Hello, nice to meet you.

SOULES: You know,
I've heard inspection,
photo inspection...

Visiting factories,
we've found that

it's surprisingly effective to
show up on short notice.

In general, any factory
that's not willing
to let you seethe factory

is an immediate
red flag,

and at least for us,
someone that

we don't want
to do business with.

This is the big line
in the factory,

so this is where
they are etching,

bringing all these
nasty acids and
other chemicals in.

You've got a little bit
of acid leak here,

you can see congealed acid on
the outside of the machine.

I walked over to where there
were some storage tanks and

there was basically acid
all over the floor and

the moment I looked over that
they told me, I mean, to,
"Get back away from here."

This isn't
giving me a good feeling.

As far as making sure
everything is done correctly,

environmentally,
it doesn't seem like
that's a priority for them.

And then about
the Maozhou River,

he said the fact
that it was so dirty

was the price you had
to pay for the last 30 years
of development.

ALEX LI: Yes.

Yeah, don't wanna
buy from them.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

LI: Do you feel that
Shenzhen changed a bit?

Uh, Shenzhen is
constantly changing.

LI: A lot of industrial
parks here and there.

SOULES:
Spent a lot of time traveling,
getting around Shenzhen.

So we shall see
what they have to offer us.

SOULES: This is definitely
the most professional
of the factories visited.

The fact that we are being
taken through this
water treatment facility

is a really promising sign.

You start out with
incredibly yucky water

and it goes through
a progressive series
of filters

and other processes...

And, eventually,
you end up with,

hopefully,
acceptably clean water.

The coolest thing,
when the water is

coming through
the treatment facility,

some of the water
comes out and dumps
into this fountain and

they have fish in here
and the factory owner said

"Well, they know the water
treatment is working okay

"as long as the
fish are still alive."

A little unfortunate for the
fish 'cause if something
breaks maybe the fish die.

So, the factory
general manager

specifically said to me

that lots of the Chinese
customers, they have...

Don't like the fact that
they've spent all the money

to do the water treatment
'cause it adds to the
cost of the boards.

But it's clear to me that
this would definitely be

the factory to buy from
of the ones we've visited.

You see here,
with all these factories

just the impact of all our
manufacturing and buying.

Like when we were looking at
the river yesterday,

all the stuff we are going
and buying at the store is

messing up water in rivers
over here in Shenzhen.

LI: Exactly.

But, an American,
we never see that river...

We think we've fixed
all of our
environmental problems

with water quality and such,
'cause we don't see it.

So it's kind of out of sight,
out of mind.

(APPLAUSE)

This is the 2015 Skoll Awards
for Social Entrepreneurship.

From the Institute of Public
and Environmental Affairs,

Ma Jun.

(APPLAUSE)

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm truly honored
and humbled

to be the first
Chinese citizen

to receive the Skoll award.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

MA JUN: I set up this
Institute of

Public and Environmental
Affairs or IPE and

our first project is to build

a national water
pollution database.

So, all these records comes
from the government sources.

The public can access the
information by click on the

locations on the map because
people want to know,

you know, who should be
held responsible

for such a bad
water pollution situation.

And so far,

we got more than 110,000
records of violation
in our database.

Environmental litigation
is still quite
difficult in China.

As a result,
the cost of violation
is very low.

It's actually lower
than the cost of compliance.

So all those factories
in China, many of them

would rather pay fines
year after year...

without really
addressing the problems.

In April 2010,

we filed letters
to 29 IT brands

to check with them whether
those polluting factories,

whether they are
their suppliers.

All of them responded
except one,

that is Apple.

Apple just give us
one statement, that is,

"We have a long-term policy
not to disclose
our supply chain."

That's it.

And we call it the iPad.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MA JUN: I was quite shocked.

I can't accept that
because, you know,

I think that you could have
your own culture,

you can make your own policy

but when your operation
is having an impact

on the health of other people,
you can't say that,

"I've made a policy
not to talk."

GREER:
Ma Jun contacted me

and we began
to work together

to apply additional pressure

to a company with headquarters
here in the United States.

Ma Jun singled out
a number of facilities

that he believed were in
Apple's supply chain.

That it had a very heavy
environmental impact
in their locality.

And when he
leveled those charges,

Apple was shocked and
sort of in denial

that this type of problem to
this extent could really
exist in their supply chain.

MA JUN: I think it's important
to understand that

this is not just about Apple.

You know, this is about
the IT industry.

GREER: They all share
printed circuit board
manufacturers.

They all share
chip manufacturers.

You know, despite their
audit protocols,

there's a lot more talk than
walk on environmental impacts
in the supply chain.

You say to yourself,

"How could they not know about
any of these problems?"

But, you know,
it's all what you ask and
it's all what you look for.

So if you're there and
you have a checklist

of what you need
and you need it now,

and that checklist
does not include

what's going on at the end
of the pipe of your
wastewater treatment plant,

it's actually conceivable

that you know exactly
where it's being made,

you just don't know exactly
how it's being made
and what the impact is.

That's what's going on,
not just with Apple,

but with all of these
companies.

Forty years of operating
the Environmental Protection
Agency in this country,

these are
American-based companies.

Hard to believe.

MA JUN: The battle
is far from being over.

This industry
is still, you know,

consuming too much resources.

We still have this industry
which is discharging
so much waste...

Not just normal waste,
hazardous waste.

And just one supplier,

it generates more than
100,000 tons

of hazardous waste
in one year.

How could we dispose them,
you know, in a safe way?

So how much of a time bomb
is this industry gonna create?

TONI SHERLING:
106, lung cancer.

108, Hodgkin's lymphoma.

110, non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma, twice.

112, the son had
testicular cancer,

the father
had stomach cancer.

LARRY SHERLING: I found out
that IBM was responsible for
spilling a lot of chemicals.

And they said, "Sorry!

"You know, we'll be
glad to put in,
what do they call it?

"A mitigation system."

The way they do is they
seal the floor

and then they
put this system
in the formal basement.

The idea is you're sucking
the ground vapors,

and we can only go on
what they tell us.

TONI SHERLING: They tell us
that these vapors

go up through that pipe
and then come out

and immediately dissipate,
and I said, "You know, c'mon.

"You know, you can
best believe

"I don't put my garden
open underneath it

"because it's gotta
go somewhere."

TONI SHERLING: Our son, Cory,
presented the same way
his father did.

No low-grade fever, no,
you know, night sweats,

weight loss, just pain.

He had pain in his stomach.

He started with his first
chemo treatment

and they said, "If there is
such a thing as a
good cancer, this is it.

"This, we can fix this."

And that poor kid
went through

two or three rounds
of chemo,

they did a PET scan and

it grew back to what it was.

And this repeated six times

till they admitted
it was chemo resistant.

And he went from
185 pounds...

We were with him the day
before he died,
he was 70 pounds.

I mean I know our son is not
the only one and there is

no big hullabaloo that's ever
gonna bring him back...

But how many have to go

before we start
realizing that,

you know, money is very
insignificant

when it comes to the
bottom line in life,
really.

I brought this diagram

to one of the
first town hall meetings.

I'm a nurse and I was
concerned because

I believe there is a total
of 16 houses

and there were 12 cases
of cancer in them.

LARRY SHERLING: I'm sure
there's other cancer cases.

These are the ones where we
knew the people personally.

TONI SHERLING: You know,
IBM can do all they want

but I don't think
anything they're doing

could ever change the impact

of what has happened
in our lives.

PAUL MAHER: In electronics,
at this moment and time,

I believe that we are
in the dinosaur age.

We are using
too many resources,

too many raw materials

and the life of computer
typically three to four years.

MAHER: We're a small company
in Ireland...

And our mission
is to produce
a fair-trade computer.

In the early days,
I'd repair just
component levels

on the computers,
on the motherboards.

From that, I noticed that

there was a huge amount
of waste in the
computer industry.

So, we started
designing and building

updateable, upgradeable,
reusable computers.

This is my father's
environmental drill,

no electricity.

You just drill. (LAUGHS)

How could you build
a computer without plastic?

How could you build
a computer without lead,
mercury, PVCs,

brominated flame-retardants,
and all the other
heavy metals?

That was our goal.

The material we use is wood,

so it's technology of
100 years ago but
it's perfectly good.

Our computers will last
seven to 10 years because

home users,
non-technical people,
can repair and replace.

I'm now replacing the memory.

You can extend the life of it
by upgradability.

This year coming is a...
Is a very big year for us.

In March, we'll be in
CeBIT in Germany.

It's probably the second
largest fair in the world,

electronic fair, and we...

We will show
our computers there.

ANNE GALLIGAN:
The problem is the laptop,

which is just at
prototype stage.

I'm trying to get
a manufacturer

that will produce it
at a reasonable price.

The volume is
minimum 5,000-plus.

That's the only way,
you know.

Once you're beyond 5,000,
you now have a factory.

GALLIGAN: Yeah, I think
it's great that we're having
the launch at the CeBIT,

especially with the

delegates that are
going to be there.

It's a great opportunity for
them to see the product.

I think it's
all about the message.

We're doing
all the right things.

We're the
only people doing it.

We're leading by example.

We're a small little company,

showing these things
can be done.

MAHER: Today is our
major launch in Europe.

We have lots of invites
sent out to people.

WILLIAMS: You nervous?

Yes.

Always.

We have a lot
riding on this...

So it's quite important that
the launch is good,

and we can meet people
and explain what we're doing.

What I've brought
for you is to see...

I've also brought the laptop
which you didn't see.

That's right.

It's a nice case.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GALLIGAN: We were
awarded the world's
first European Ecolabel

for integrated
desktop computers.

It was the world's first
to ever achieve this award.

At that time,
I thought, wow, the...

The gates will open,
the orders will flood in.

But that was not the case.

Maybe a little bit
of naivety on...
On my part.

It's hard out there, like,
government agencies
and people like that,

there is no room
for environmental.

They are totally
just bottom line.

MAHER: So we have a crowd.

We have a crowd
at our stand again, you know?

Have you an interest
in environmental...

A laptop made from
industrial waste?

It's made from pallets.

We're getting lots
and lots of students
and younger people,

and they all had
a huge interest.

Most of the people who've
come to us are stating it,
"Why can we not repair them?

"Why can we not
replace a battery?

"Why can we not
replace a hard drive?

"Why does it only
last for three years?"

I'm looking at it now,
it's one little step
at a time.

But what we do need to do
is work harder,

build more computers
and get people to join us.

WILLIAMS: What do you do with
your old electronic devices
that you don't use anymore?

Like, when you get
a new iPhone.

At the moment, it's lying
somewhere in a closet.

I believe it's in a drawer
in my desk at home.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

I'm hoping that someone's
out there recycling 'em,

or they're being
fixed and reused.

Part of the reason why I still
kept my old phone was...

I really didn't know
what to do with it

and I had no idea what
happens if I get rid of it.

If we're at the right table.
This I know works.

Fabulous.

SMITH: For the first
20 years that I was
involved in electronics,

the focus was on production.

But as the industry
grew and expanded,

I realized along with
a number of other people,

that it was not only the
production-related hazards
that were a problem,

it was what happened
to these products
as they became obsolete.

This industry
has grown so rapidly

that it's becoming
much more of
a resource, a suck.

It is just taking up
so many resources.

We have to find ways
of reusing our devices.

DARRIN MAGEE: Americans
toss out a lot of gadgets
every day.

If we look at
the three million or so
tons of electronic waste

that gets generated
in the United States
every year,

probably 15% of that
gets recycled.

And some percent of that
gets recycled in a
responsible fashion.

MAGEE: Holy cow.

DON CASS: Yeah, now this is
the way it all comes in.

What you'll see now is
this line is doing
desktop computers.

Yeah.

Lisa's working on one
right now where she'll take...

She'll take the whole
desktop computer,
take it down to the parts.

So you see the parts
are in the boxes.
Mmm-hmm. Right.

We've got wire,
plastics...

The value, you can see,
is going up 'cause now
these are the boards.

Okay. So this is where
the potential

for a little bit of
money is right there.

Right in here is
where the money is.
Okay.

Is that gold?
In the... Gold, yes.

MAGEE: We have
very little relationship
to our garbage here.

We throw it away,

and my point as
an environmental geographer,
is to say,

"Where is 'away'?"

"Away" is here for someone.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

(XIA HUO SPEAKING)

KIMBERLEY PRATHER:
We think, "Okay, we'll send
our e-waste to China.

"Let them burn it.
Let them have the pollution."

But we have to remember

that air pollution travels
around the globe.

That pollution's getting
lofted into the atmosphere
and coming right back to us.

A metal is a metal
is a metal, you know.

And there's no other form
for it to convert to.

You can covert it from
being in the soil,

to being in the water,
to being in the air...

But you still have a metal.

In our work,
we fly through clouds

and we sample
the cloud droplets...

and we measure the chemistry
of each one very fast as
you're flying through a cloud.

And they're flashing
as fast as you can imagine
on a screen,

and we collect
that information.

And what we get
is a chemical fingerprint.

In California,
with the getting rid
of lead in gasoline,

we've reduced the amount
of lead we have.

And so when lead shows up

that is one of the tracers
that we say,

"Hmm. This could be
from elsewhere."

And we can trace it back
in time and say, you know,

"Four days ago,
this air was over Asia."

PRATHER: So,
let's look at this first.
This is amazing.

How long has she
been doing this?

The hit rate is really high.

We look at what are called
"aerosol particles..."

Little microscopic bits
of dust and soot

that float around
in our atmosphere.

And then we've been
using them to understanding

how they affect
our climate

and how they affect
the clouds and the weather.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

When you have more pollution,
and you have more aerosols...

Those go into the cloud.

And you have so many
that they can't get big enough
to fall and lead to rain.

And it's giving you these
extremes of either

not enough water in
some places

and way too much water
in other places.

What happens
if we push it too far?

We'll start to see more
of these extreme events...

Things like flooding
and hurricanes.

These are what people often
refer to as "tipping points".

And that's what we're very
concerned about happening.

I think people take
for granted that the world
will always be here for us.

It was somehow...
"It's ours and so
we can just use it up."

I'd like to leave something
for my kids and their kids
to be able to enjoy,

and I just see it
slipping away.

We're responsible for taking
care of this planet...

And we need to realize that
each individual is responsible

in every choice
we make every day.

WILLIAMS: My attachment
to my devices is
more complicated now.

It's hard to get excited
about the next new model
or upgrade...

Knowing what they
really cost to make.

The industry,

in its constant search for
cheaper workers and land,

is moving on
to new countries

with few government
safeguards or inspections.

We all have a share
in this problem.

But we can use our voices
and our buying power

to demand real labor safety

and greater
environmental protections.

The digital revolution
has improved our lives
in so many ways.

We need to make sure
it doesn't rob us of
our health and our planet.

WILLIAMS: Do you feel like you
as a consumer have anything
you can do about this?

I think consuming
not too often helps.

I would upgrade less often.

I would absolutely do that.

I can put together
a petition to

these companies and ask them
to be more responsible
in their work practices.

WILLIAMS: Would you be
interested in buying
a green phone?

Oh, a green device
would be great.

I would pay actually more
for a green device.

Get rid of the iPad,
I'd pay for a green phone.

I would pay more for it.

We already pay
more for stuff

that we consider
organic or ethical.
We already do.