Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Old Computers Causing Environmental Crisis in India, 2/26/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/e-waste_2-26.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What happens to old computers, televisions and cell phones when you get new ones?

2. Do you recycle? If so, what kinds of things?

3. What do recycling plants do?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. How much electronic waste is produced in India each year? Why?

But these jobs need lots of computers -- even defective computers that can be recycled and refurbished. And this has made India a dumping ground for mountains of toxic electronic or e-waste.

More than 150,000 tons of electronic waste is produced there each year, according to Toxics Link, an Indian environmental organization.

2. Computers contain many raw materials. Which are the good one? Which are the toxic ones?

The raw materials in a computer -- gold, copper coils, aluminum and other metals -- are worth money. But to get these components out of the computers, the motherboards are literally cooked, releasing arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxins.

3. What impact do these toxic metals have on the body? How many children in India are impacted in this way?

These metals harm the body, especially brain development.

According to Dr. Thuppil Venkatesh, a professor of biochemistry and biochemistry at St. John's Medical Center in Bangalore, India, 53 percent of children under 12 in India's cities are lead-poisoned.

That means they have permanent brain damage that claims up to 20 percent of their I.Q.

4. How many people work in the computer recycling trade in India?

But with a high demand for computers and people willing to do the painstaking work to recycle them for low pay, the industry is growing despite the dangers.

Experts say that up to 5 million people work in this trade, often with little or no protections.

"The recycling is highly dangerous in India, with all the operation and the procedure is still very primitive. And they are recycling with their bare hand; they have no protection at all," Ramapati Kumar of Greenpeace India, told the NewsHour.

5. Why is the government hesitant to regulate this industry?

And although lawmakers in the country are aware of these problems, they are hesitant to create rules that could eliminate jobs for some of the poorest people in the world.

"In this country, environment is an important issue, but it's not a priority. So livelihood becomes a priority. And basically, you know, takes a lead on all of our other issues, including the toxic waste," Kumar said.

6. Why do rich countries export their e-waste to poor countries?

Much of the e-waste is illegally imported from rich countries, such as the United States, where recycling is much more expensive.

"It can cost $20 to $30 to dispose of one computer, just to throw it away in a proper way. Now instead of that, if you then export the waste to a poor, developing country in Africa, China or India, you can actually make money off that waste," Ravi Agarwal of Toxics Links told the NewsHour.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

Additional research resources for these questions are available at the Online NewsHour: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/military/proliferation/profiles.html

1. Should people be allowed to decide whether they want to work in unsafe environments if that is their only way to send their children to school or pay for medical treatment? What are the moral implications for the workers, the government, business leaders, human rights groups?

2. According to the article, the Indian government feels that the pressure to have jobs for the poorest of the poor is more important than protecting people from dangerous recycling practices. What do you think? If you were a government leader in India how would you solve this dilemma?

3. In the article, Dr. Thuppil Venkatesh asks that people in rich countries not donate old computers to poor countries like India. What should you do instead? Research how you can safely recycle your e-waste in your community without sending it to poor countries like India. Share your research with others, including those in your school.

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.