Mapping chemical discardscapes of electronics production

Abstract

This paper offers both empirical and conceptual interventions toward an environmentally grounded sectoral analysis of the electronics sector and against the pernicious myth of the digital-as-ethereal. Empirically, it maps pollution emitted from electronics manufacturing facilities in the NAFTA region (Canada, the United States, and Mexico) over the decade of 2006–2017 using publicly available facility level data from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s pollution release and transfer registry (PRTR). Total releases and transfers of pollutants and waste from the sector in the NAFTA region amounted to over 366 million kilograms over this time period. 244 facilities (6 of 50 facilities in Canada; 40 of 264 facilities in Mexico; 198 of 1,593 facilities in the US) account for 80–90 percent of total releases and transfers in the NAFTA region. Further data collection about the owners of these 244 facilities identified an additional 1,495 instances of them or their parent companies reporting a presence in a country outside of NAFTA. Nearly half of those 1,495 instances (greater than 47 percent) are located in countries that currently do not have a publicly available PRTR. Conceptually, the paper develops the notion of ‘occlusive residues’ to help interpret the patterns suggested by these data. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of potential ameliorative action and future research directions for a fuller environmentally grounded sectoral analysis of the electronics sector.