The Story of Electronics

The Story of Electronics employs the Story of Stuff style to explore the high-tech revolution's collateral damage—25 million tons of e-waste and counting, poisoned workers and a public left holding the bill.

Annie Leonard takes viewers from the mines and factories where our gadgets begin to the horrific backyard recycling shops in China where many end up. The film concludes with a call for a green 'race to the top' where designers compete to make long-lasting, toxic-free products that are fully and easily recyclable.

Our production partner on the electronics film is the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which promotes green design and responsible recycling in the electronics industry.

And, for all you fact checkers out there,

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[oJahzarao]

In my area, we have a place called "Free Geek" where you can donate your electronics and they break everything down and recycle each of the parts in different manners. For example, gold used in motherboards are sent to people who'll salvage the gold and reuse them to make new motherboards. It's volunteer based; I've volunteered there myself and helped take apart old hard drives or computer monitor stands and such. What they can reuse, they send to their build program, where volunteers are taught how to build computers and then the computers are donated to local places in need, like schools. It's a great place!

[Mangold]

RAM soldered to motherboard is an EXCELLENT example of design for the dump! thanks "green" Apple!

[timothylu]

Anyone here watching this for school homework? so many teachers sent this

[cinmay]

There was a major shift at the end of the 1990's from fixable to non fixable products. I studied to be a technician with specialization on fixing consumer electronics but by the time I was done with my studies, no one fixed electronics any more.
Today I develop and produce industrial data capture devices and we have a subscription based payment model. Because our customers rent our equipment we have huge incentives to make our products fixable and long lasting. We also do our own manufacturing in our micro factory so we have huge personal incentives to reduce our toxic chemical usage. We where able to cut PVC almost completely out of our production. (PVC is everywhere in electronics.) Sustainable manufacturing and recycling is possible.

[CrniWuk]

"You made it, you deal with it."
In Germany we have a law, that forces the manufactures of TV-Screens, monitors and the like to take it from the consumer for recycling, because it is illegal to send such waste into third world nations.

[kalle]

This've been 8 Years ago and nothing changed

[MsDowloader]

My friends motherboard broke, he gave it to me cause the shop refused to repair it. I found few low quality capacitors blown, i replaced them not hoping for anything cause caps don't explode for no reason (except when they are sh*tty quality) but it did the job and i got decent gaming rig. Don't throw away broken stuff, give it to the people that can scavenge it!

[alperenalperen]

Moore did not say proccesors power will double every year he predicted that transistors number per unit area in a chip will double every two years

[CanadianPoets]

Thank goodness for thoughtful people like you.
Thank you!

[OldTimeyJunk]

Finally. A video explaining the "designing for the dump" without saying don't use electronics at all.
Good job guys!

[mechcommander]

Thank you Annie and team for your hard work and research done! Hopefully YouTube will feature more of your videos to spread the word around on saving our one and only Earth! Keep up the fantastic productions!

[Korstre]

I have a Tandy 1000 SL/2 from 1989 which has a motherboard (the computer's primary circuit board, FYI) that has sockets for pretty much every microchip on it. This means that the user or a humble repair store can effortlessly replace only the broken chip with a new one without having to swap out the entire motherboard. This also makes it easier to repair the computer 27 years later because many of the Tandy 1000's chips are still manufactured today even though the board itself is not. WOW, HOW DEY DO DAT???

[Greenday]

There are a lot of people who don't buy new gadgets every year, I still have an iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 4, and 2012 MacBook Pro, all work fine, and aren't going to die anytime soon.

[Caroyout]

Motivation is what gets you started, HABIT keeps you going...

[louietheduke]

dunno if its a placebo effect but I do feel happier so to speak when I put my groceries in a canvas bag, when I recycle old clothes into 50 items that I would normally bought (ei bags, shirts, holders, recyclable items) and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I make something from junk (recyclable crafts) then going out spending money on something new. Also when I make it I know it's going to last, not fall apart at first use and cost a ton.

[hemantbhatt]

that "TAKE IT BACK" idea is awesome

[jocelynmuch]

thank you so much for the subtitles! great for teaching!

[fyjkf]

I would caution people not to be so harsh towards these videos. They're made for people who have no clue about any of these issues, and it's scary how many people really don't know. 1/2 of my sustainability class have no clue. Just keep in mind at the heart of it these videos advocates not polluting and stopping the destruction of the environment. And they're only 7-10 min long-she can't go into every facet; people don't have that long of an attention span/don't have the time anymore.

[Mcdonald]

Well it would help if people stopped buying the latest smart phones on a yearly basis. Fact of the matter is that these things do last, the masses are just that desperate for entertainment or attention and are therefore easily fooled and impressed...Can't make shit if no one is buying...

I still have my Nokia 5800 which I got about 7 years ago and it works great. Last year, I decided to upgrade to the Samung S4 just to keep up with the clear gap in technology. Now until the next gadget released is significantly more advanced than my S4 (Just like my S4 is to my Nokia) I won't be spending a dime. And seeing as you still can't tell the overwhelming difference between an S4 and an S6, I am sure I won't be upgrading for another 5 years at least.

[DonutUnderpants]

Why not just call it planned obsolescence, like it is?