Toxic Tea Party
23 July 2007 - Tea made with imported water and a dark, murky tea made with polluted local water. The local water makes the tea turn black, probably due to the horrific groundwater pollution from Guiyu’s e-waste yards.
Guiyu, China — Welcome to the Guiyu tea ceremony. Boss Guo sets a pair of thimble sized tea cups on a ceremonial tray. He half fills one of the tiny cups with bottled, drinkable water. In to the other he pours water from the well in his backyard. Then he fills both up with steaming Chinese tea. The cup with bottled water turns a healthy amber. The one with the well water instantly converts to an impenetrable black.
Guo, a brash young man dressed in a purple polyester suit and white shirt, doesn’t know why. He says he sees no connection between the stacks of dismembered electrical equipment behind us in his workshop and the strange quality of his water. Still he won’t drink the black tea. “We won’t even shower with that water,” he says.
Guiyu, near China’s southeastern coast is the centre of an uncontrolled environmental disaster. Here and in several nearby townships, electronic waste, most of it imported, is broken up in small workshops. It’s a version of outsourcing that saves wealthier countries the high cost of disposing of their electronic trash. In this part of China recycling e-waste is apparently free of any environmental or health and safety regulation.
Read the rest of the story on: Greenpeace
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