Microsoft invests in Ontario-based rare earths recycling company
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My BBC report from Inner Mongolia's toxic lake created by our consumer gadgets and green tech http://t.co/HOEVPkRfyP pic.twitter.com/BIe1YCZIRK
— Tim Maughan (@timmaughan) April 3, 2015
BBC reporter Tim Maughan travels to Inner Mongolia and Baotou, an industrial city in China responsible for mining and manufacturing many high end electronic gadgets that rely on rare earth minerals. What he finds causes despair:
And there’s no better place to understand China’s true sacrifice than the shores of Baotou toxic lake. Apparently created by damming a river and flooding what was once farm land, the lake is a “tailings pond”: a dumping ground for waste byproducts.
We reached the shore, and looked across the lake. I’d seen some photos before I left for Inner Mongolia, but nothing prepared me for the sight. It’s a truly alien environment, dystopian and horrifying. The thought that it is man-made depressed and terrified me, as did the realisation that this was the byproduct not just of the consumer electronics in my pocket, but also green technologies like wind turbines and electric cars that we get so smugly excited about in the West. Unsure of quite how to react, I take photos and shoot video on my cerium polished iPhone.
2 Comments
AFR2
That’s not so bad.
The USA is actually considering construction of the Keystone Pipeline!
Talk about ground displacement! They’d have to dig a trench and everything!
Can you imagine the number of bunny rabbits that would be forced to jump outta the way?
Mississauga_Dad
No one needs to worry about Keystone XL anymore. In what can only be described as an unprecedented case of unfathomable unbelievable total self-destruction, the people of Alberta just elected a far left government led by a socialist feminist who has vowed that not only will Keystone XL NOT go ahead but that she will shut down the oil-sands. Look for Neil Young to headline an (acoustic) celebratory concert with the new Premier where everybody will be holding candles because that will be the only kind of energy still permitted in the province.