Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T03:58:26.714Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The West Line E-Waste Economy

from Part I - Positioning E-Waste Hubs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2024

John-Michael Davis
Affiliation:
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts
Yaakov Garb
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Get access

Summary

This chapter details the West Line e-waste economy as an example of global destruction networks operating globally as an under-examined shadow of the more familiar and visible phases of the economy. It traces the highly effective collection pathways developed by Palestinian entrepreneurs to locate and funnel end-of-life materials from Israeli households, institutions, and scrapyards to the West Line, along with lesser inputs from Palestinian areas. We describe the navigation of borders, including through mediation of Israeli settlers, as a cascading flow of scrap arrives to the West Line, for resale, repair, and processing, with valuable metals extracted for export back to Israel, and low value remnants disposed. This informal economic value chain employs a complex hierarchy of a thousand workers, operating in an ecosystem of interlocked dynamic niches of specialization and synergy, ranging from multi-million dollar metal traders to children picking through ash for pieces of copper, producing one of the largest Palestinian exports to Israel. At the same time, similar to other hubs globally, these vibrant economic contributions in a context of scarce opportunity are in increasingly tense relations with the wide-ranging severe environmental and health impacts of the crude extraction and disposal practices employed and international scrutiny.

Type
Chapter
Information
Polluted Politics
The Development of an Israeli-Palestinian E-Waste Economy
, pp. 33 - 60
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×