Challenging the Chip

Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry

David Pellow, David Sonnenfeld, Ted Smith, David Pellow, David Sonnenfeld, Ted Smith

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781592133307, 9781592133291
• eBook ISBN: 9781592133314
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

From Silicon Valley in California to Silicon Glen in Scotland, from Silicon Island in Taiwan to Silicon Paddy in China, the social, economic, and ecological effects of the international electronics industry are widespread. The production of electronic and computer components contaminates air, land, and water around the globe. As this eye-opening book reveals, the people who suffer the consequences are largely poor, female, immigrant, and minority. Challenging the Chip is the first comprehensive examination of the impacts of electronics manufacturing on workers and local environments across the planet. Contributors to this pioneering volume include many of the world's most articulate, passionate and progressive visionaries, scholars and advocates. Here they not only document the unsustainable and often devastating practices of the global electronics industry but also chronicle creative ways in which activists, government agencies, and others have attempted to reform the industry—through resistance, persuasion, and regulation.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword: Technology Happens
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Quest for Sustainability and Justice in a High-Tech World
• I. GLOBAL ELECTRONICS
• II. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND LABOR RIGHTS
• III. ELECTRONIC WASTE AND EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY
• Appendix A: Principles of Environmental Justice
• Appendix B: The Silicon Principles of Socially and Environmentally Responsible Electronics Manufacturing
• Appendix C: Sample Shareholder Resolutions
• Appendix D: Computer TakeBack Campaign Statement of Principles
• Appendix E: Electronics Recycler’s Pledge of True Stewardship
• Acronyms Used
• References
• Resources
• Contributors
• Index