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The Boob Tube's Border Graveyard?

Analog's Border Graveyard?
Source: Frontera Norte Sur

FNS News:

June 23, 2008

Environment News

In many ways, Mexican cities along the country’s northern border resemble a second-hand store for old US goods. Used autos and trucks, worn tires, hand-me-down clothes and countless other discards of the mass consumer society wind up in Mexican border towns in abundant quantities. Now, some environmental experts are concerned Mexico will become a giant dumping ground for analog television sets when the US goes digital early next year. Mexico is not expected to make the digital transition until a much later date.

“The problem is that a television set contains a great number of contaminants,” said biologist Alma Leticia Figueroa, a researcher with the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez and a former director of the municipal ecology department. “The screen, the plastic, all of it is polluting and requires special management,” Figueroa said. Old television sets contain heavy metals, fire retardants and other toxic substances.

While used TV sets will gain a lease on life in Mexico, many artifacts of the analog age could ultimately end up as improperly discarded garbage.  The irony is that a surge of used televisions imports, which likely contain parts manufactured in Mexican factories, would violate the old principle that maquiladora plants return hazardous waste to their country of origin.

What’s more, boob tubes from across border could ultimately complicate Mexico’s larger problem with so-called e-waste, which also includes old computers, cell phones and other electronic gadgets. A 2007 study sponsored by the National Ecology Institute (INE) found that Mexico generates between 150,000-180,000 tons of e-waste every year. At the moment, the country is ill-equipped to handle its growing mountain of electronic trash.

Approved in 2003, a federal waste management law gives states and municipalities the primary responsibility for controlling e-waste.  It also allows for the recycling of e-waste. Many Mexican states have been waiting for a full assessment of their e-waste stream to enact regulations.

On the other hand, members of the private sector, academia and civil society are promoting recycling. In Tijuana, for example, the Mexican Network for Environmental Waste Management (Remexmar) is helping organize public conferences and staging mass collections of used electronics products. According to Remexmar, the public brought 12 tons of e-waste to a Tijuana event late last month.

Additional sources: Norte, June 21, 2008. Article by Herika Martinez
Prado. La Jornada, December 24, 2007. Article by Angelica Encisco L.
Ecoamericas.com, July 2007.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Published on: June 23, 2008
Written by: Frontera Norte Sur

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