"Where Your Cellphone Goes to Die" by Leyla Acaroglu

“Where Your Cellphone Goes to Die”

By Leyla Acaroglu

            “Where Your Cellphone Goes to Die” is about e-waste, how it affects people, and what can be done to have it be reduced.  In the article, Acaroglu reminds us that the United States is sending enormous amounts of electronic waste to places such as China, Ghana, and India.  There you can find young children and pregnant women, working in dangerous conditions.  What these men, women and children do, is try to extract copper, wires, gold and silver threads by smashing batteries with mallets, burning huge mountains of electronics and "cooking" circuit boards.  This can leave toxic pieces lying on their hands, and has them inhaling the smoke of the burned items.  Side effects of these things are neurological damage (brain damage) and challenge child development.  I think that if the United STates tried, it wouldn't be hard to change the e-trash disposal practices.

            With a minimum effort from the government, manufacturers and consumers, e-trash disposal would be much safer for others and would reduce the trash itself.  The government could simply just sign a treaty, and put an act to vote.  "The united states... could ratify the Basel Convention, an international treaty that makes it illegal to export or traffic in toxic e-waste... The Responsible Electronics Recycling Act... would make it illegal to export toxic wast from the U.S to developing countries that have limited or no safeguards... despite support from both Democrats and Republicans it was never put to vote." These act and conventions could decrease the danger people in Ghana, India and China are working in.  For the manufacturers, they could find better alternatives to the waste.  For example, the E.U (European Union) requires that all who sell the electronics need to accept all items of theirs for recycling.  "The goal is to properly recycle 85 percent of the E.U's e-waste by 2019."  In Japan all who manufacture electronic have to have their own recycling facilities.  Finally, the consumer.  To help, the consumer can pressure the government and manufacturers by demanding better solution for the trash, and they can take it upon them to recycle their electronic devices.  "Consumer pressure on manufacturers to design electronics that can be more easily recycled could be enormously helpful... we [consumers] could recycle the ones we no longer use through certified recycling services."  That can help be recycling properly, and having better devices to begin with.

            As you can see, there needs to be change in the way we handle electronic waste.  The fact that people can suffer, just because consumers are throwing an old phone away, is not something that can be ignored.  With a little effort from everyday consumers, the ones in charge of manufacturing these devices, and the United States government, change could come progressively.

Smack by Melvin Burgess

SMACK

By Melvin Burgess

            “Smack” is a story with many real world issues.  Gemma a 14-year-old girl runs away with her boyfriend Tar.  Soon they meet 16-year-old couple Rob and Lily and move into a squat with them.  Starting off with small drugs such as marijuana, Gemma and Tar soon escalate to class A drugs; heroin.  To afford their “hobby” Lily and Gemma become prostitutes, and Rob and Tar deal a little on the side.  The story goes through all their challenges, until Gemma is pregnant and her and Tar go home at 18 to raise their kid.  In this book Gemma, Tar, Rob, and Lily all have several ways of coping with big and small situations, some good and some bad.

            The obvious way all of these characters cope in common is running away.  They all ran away from home at very young ages (Lily 12, the rest 14) for their own reasons.  But that’s not the only time they ran away from problems in their life.  When Tar and Gemma are in their first squat with Richard, Vonny and Jerry, as soon as they don’t like it anymore they meet new people and leave in the middle of the night, no explanations.  “’ I ought to go away… and leave him because maybe he’d stand a better change without me.’” (Page 256) This was when Gemma wanted to run away from Tar so he could get clean.  Another way the characters deal with conflict, is when Tar is upset, he goes and paints.  “I went back to my room and I got out the pastels… and had a go at the dandelion.” (Page 143) Tar dealt with his emotions by pouring them out into his drawing.  He didn’t stop for hours.  A less positive way to deal with issues is when they were tight on money.  “There was a big handful of tenners [money] coming down from the ceiling… Rob grabbed the notes and went bombing off to get some [drugs]… We said, ‘we’ve been little prossies [prostitutes] for half an hour.’” (Page 184).  This was in the beginning when it was only an occasional thing, but they quickly found a gig daily.  There are other ways characters deal with issues, such as Rob’s skills in stealing, the drugs, drug dealing and the occasional phone call home.

            Those are some of the examples of how characters in the book dealt with issues in their lives.  Some of those were harmful to them, or dangerous, but others were simple ways that many people can relate to.  All in all, "Smack" was a very good book, with an interesting plot and issues, and characters you could feel sympathy towards.