“Consumer goods are meant to be used up and to disappear; the idea of temporariness and transitoriness is intrinsic to their very denomination as objects of consumption; consumer goods have memento mori written all over them, even if with an invisible ink.”
(Zygmunt Bauman)
BIT ROT is a colloquial term used in the computerized information systems environment to indicate the gradual decaying of data kept on storage media or software over the duration of time. In this case, the concept is transposed from a virtual reality, made of bits and software, to a material one, made of real people, things and places.
The BIT ROT project follows the international movements of e-waste, providing evidence of illegal commerce and disposal, and tells the stories of those who are involved, but also underlines green and sustainable alternatives that have already been adopted in many countries.
Electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) is growing faster than any other type of waste. With an annual volume that is between 40 and 50 million metric tons, according to the UNEP (United Nation Environment Program), the growing amount of e-waste could grow exponentially, as much as 500 times over the coming decade, especially in countries like India, China and some African regions where the technology industry is growing fast.
It is hazardous waste, containing dozens of substances dangerous to human health and the environment; it is hard to be sustainably disposed of and a costly processing technique is necessary to make it recyclable. This is the reason why about 80% of the e-waste produced in developed countries (North America and Europe at the top of the list) is not disposed of in situ, but shipped, most of the time illegally, to developing countries, where it is illegally disposed of. The Basel Convention, adopted on 22 March 1989 and entered into force in 5 May 1992, lays down rules to control, at an international level, transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, including electrical and electronic waste. However, it is not effective enough to fight the criminal organizations that gain great profit from moving the materials internationally.
This project focuses on the extreme consumerism of the society we live in. A society that keeps modern slaves hostage, forced to live and work in detrimental conditions, and that at same time, keeps itself hostage, always looking for innovative technological products to satisfy its own need to be fast and competitive. A society where the consumer does not recognize boredom and the culture avoids it. Where the moments of happiness are when we satisfy our impelling needs, careless of acknowledging that our choices have an impact on the life of those that have no choice.
Valentino Bellini. Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong. The digital hub of Sham Shui Po, the largest electronic market in Hong Kong.
Valentino Bellini. Lahore, Pakistan. Printed circuit boards waiting to be processed.
Valentino Bellini. Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. One of the young boys working in Agbogbloshie has made the landfill his home; he has built a shelter of different types of scraps and wastes. Most of the people who work in Agbogbloshie are from rural Northern Ghana. To work in Agbogbloshie they have to leave their families and homes.
Valentino Bellini. Old Seelampur, New Delhi, India. Old transistors boiling in metal pots. In this way, the plastic will melt and it will be possible to gather the metallic parts and sell them.
Valentino Bellini. Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. Hong Kong harbor is one of the largest commercial ports in the world and is the largest access point to mainland China for goods from all over the world.
Valentino Bellini. Huaqing Recycling Solution Center, Qingyuan, China. The hall at the entrance of the center, the second largest recycling center in China. On the left is the panel with the reference values for metals of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, that will define the values of the materials extracted from the electronics scraps.
Valentino Bellini. Huaqing Recycling Solution Center, Qingyuan, China. A room with informational materials about the life cycle of electrical and electronic products designed to inform the local population on the use and disposal of these wastes.
Valentino Bellini. Guiyu, China. Outside of a workshop where electrical and electronic components are dismantled and recycled.
Valentino Bellini. New Territories, Hong Kong. A collection and stocking site for electrical and electronic waste, which has arrived by container ships at the port of Hong Kong. It will be stocked here for a short time, waiting to be transported overland to the various recycling sites in China, a few kilometers away.
Valentino Bellini. Shahdara, Lahore, Pakistan. Outdated electronic equipment is resold in a small retail shop. Old cathode ray tube televisions, radios and recorders imported mostly from China, constitute for a good portion of the population access to new forms of communication previously unreachable. At the same time, they bring with them high risks to human health and environment.
Valentino Bellini. Old Seelampur, New Delhi, India. Two young men during a break in a warehouse full of old cathode ray tube monitors. These types of devices contain polluting and toxic substances like lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs).
Valentino Bellini. Old Seelampur, New Delhi, India. One of the poorest suburb areas, but the biggest e-waste market in Delhi. There are dozens of retail and wholesale stores. Most of them buy materials from abroad (USA, Europe, Dubai) for about $10 cents to $15 cents per kilo and sell it for double the price to other stores. There, they separate the components of the electric and electronic devices in order to sell them again.
Valentino Bellini. Chennai, India. Two workers of SIMS Recycling Solutions, the global leader in the recovery of electronic and electric wastes for reuse and recycling. It has facilities in five continents.
Valentino Bellini. Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. A guy is standing in the midst of smoke, fire and residual parts of electronic equipment as he burns it to extract some copper contained inside that he will resell later to gain his daily food.
Valentino Bellini. Walton Road, Lahore, Pakistan. Bins full of chemicals that will be used for the extraction of precious metals from electronic waste.
Valentino Bellini. Lahore, Pakistan. A guy stands in front of a huge pile of electronic components which will later be processed to extract precious metals.
Valentino Bellini. Old Seelampur, New Delhi, India. Workers in front of a warehouse used to dismantle electronic devices. They separate the components and extract the valuable parts to sell.
Valentino Bellini. Kancheepuram Districti, Tamil Nadu, India. GEMS (Global E-Waste Management and Services) facilities. GEMS is one of the few companies authorized to treat electric and electronic waste in India. They separate the different parts of the wastes, plastic and metallic, and then they sell them to companies specialized in the recycling of those specific materials.
Valentino Bellini. Kancheepuram Districti, Tamil Nadu, India. Plastic monitor wrecks accumulated in the “plastic segregation” sector of the GEMS facilities.
Valentino Bellini. Wagha Town, Lahore, Pakistan. Trucks full of metallic materials coming from the disposal of electric and electronic waste arrive to this foundry daily. Here the metal, along with some other metal scrap of different provenience, is melted at a temperature of 1800 degrees Celsius. In this way, they create new metallic materials and use them in the construction field.
Valentino Bellini. Wagha Town, Lahore, Pakistan. Trucks full of metallic materials coming from the disposal of electric and electronic waste arrive to this foundry daily. Here the metal, along with some other metal scrap of different provenience, is melted at a temperature of 1800 degrees Celsius. In this way, they create new metallic materials and use them in the construction field.
Valentino Bellini. Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. A young man is transporting electric materials that are highly toxic, ready to be burnt.
Valentino Bellini. Guangzhou, China A boy waits for customers in his hardware materials store inside a big shopping mall for electronics. They sell mostly used materials which can then be used to compose “new” second-hand electronic items.
Valentino Bellini. Old Seelampur, New Delhi, India. The average pay of an electric waste disposal worker in the suburbs of Old Seelampur in New Delhi is about 2-3 thousand Indian rupees per month, which is about 35-55 dollars. It pays for nine to ten hours of work per day, with insufficient security conditions, in close and prolonged contact with toxic substances.
Valentino Bellini. Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana A boy rests in a makeshift hut built with pieces of various types of waste. He works at the landfill in Agbogbloshie all day long, under the sun, with temperatures often exceeding forty degrees.
Valentino Bellini. Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. The e-waste dump of Agbogbloshie is the main place in Africa of recycling and processing of electronic waste coming from abroad.
Valentino Bellini. Odaw River, Accra, Ghana. The Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon are full of every kind of waste coming from the Agbogbloshie landfill and from the nearby slums where they use the river as a latrine. A couple of hundreds meters downhill the river and lagoon flow into the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The government of Ghana is trying to restore the natural conditions of the lagoon thanks to the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration project (KLERP).
Valentino Bellini. Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. A guy is standing in the midst of smoke, fire and residual parts of electronic equipment as he burns it to extract some copper contained inside to resell later to earn his daily food.
Valentino Bellini. Lian River, Guiyu, China Lian River is a minor river that flows into the South China Sea. Here, every night, huge piles of electrical and electronic waste, together with other waste derived from manufacture are accumulated on the banks of the river and set on fire. This waste is the last link in the chain; it is no longer possible to extract anything of value from these materials.
Valentino Bellini (1984) is a freelance documentary photographer. After studying architecture and urbanism, he devoted himself to photography, working for a few years in a fine art printing lab and then freelancing and developing personal projects, which are focused on issues related to social phenomena and the effects they have on the environment. He is currently based between Palermo and Buenos Aires.
