The products that we buy have costs associated with them that we don’t pay. They’re invisible to us because those costs get pushed onto others, usually in less developed counties.
For example, you buy a new iPhone for $1500. But only costs Apple $570 to make. In reality though the cost should be much higher. The raw materials, such as palladium and other rare earths come from open pit mines. 90% of these materials come from places like China and Africa. Where the environmental laws are more lax. Tailings run off and pollute the ground water. The air from smelting facilities is acrid and dense. Large areas are deforested as the demand for these rare earths increases.
Not to mention the human costs.
Cobalt, one of the most important raw materials in the manufacture of cellphones comes from the Congo. More than 70% comes from the DRC and much of it comes from child labour.
Workers in the FOXCONN factory who create and assemble the phone, work under strenuous conditions. The average worker only earns around $300 dollars a month.
Later when your iPhone becomes obsolete, because Apple slowed it down, disposal of that e-waste becomes an international issue. Canada dumps much of it’s e-waste in counties like Ghana.
People who couldn’t even afford an iPhone are expected to have their natural resources stripped to make an iPhone. Work for pennies manufacturing an iPhone. And then live with the toxic pollution of disposed iPhones. Does that sound fair?
Now, if you had to pay for the “real cost” all of those things, how much would the phone cost then? Cradle to grave pricing would provide a better perspective on the environmental impact created by products. It would include costs from the beginning of the life cycle to the eventual disposal. This increase in price would only be worthwhile though if the increase was used to mitigate and offset the human and environmental impacts. Which would require additional or changes to existing legislation.