The Global Supply Chain of Digital Devices

Providing a Sense of Physical Place to Reveal Truth in a Digital World

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified dependence on digital devices. Their use has become necessary to interact with others in social, educational, and work settings.

The extraction and processing of the metals necessary to make digital devices are often harmful to the local environment and the communities in which they occur. Not only is their extraction and production a harmful process, but the disposal of digital devices largely consists of exporting them to the Global South to end up in landfills.


The Global Supply Chain of Digital Devices Mapped

From mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chile to rare earth processing centers in Mongolia, to Lewis & Clark College, and finally, to e-waste dump sites in Nigeria.

This map certainly does not map every source, production center, distribution center, or dumpsite of the supply chain of digital devices. Instead, it is a simplified version of the supply chain that reveals a few "hidden truths" that otherwise may not be seen.

"We call them 'Supply Chains,' but that image is misleading. They really look more like a network of waterways, with thousands of tiny tributaries made up of sub-suppliers trickling into larger rivers of assembly, production, and distribution." - Miriam Posner, "See No Evil"

Extraction

Copper Mines in the Atacama Desert, Chile

The Atacama Desert, considered the world's driest desert, is home to the indigenous Atacameños of Chile and is the site of conflict over indigenous land rights and water rights. The mining companies that operate in the region own much of the land and pollute the scarce water ( Water Privatization and Indigenous Struggle in Northern Chile )

Water contamination from copper mine in Chile (Greenspec.com)

Mining companies in the region also mine Lithium, a mineral used for digital device batteries as well.

From "Indigenous People's Livelihoods at risk in scramble for lithium, the new white gold" ( Reuters Events )

Extraction

Cobalt Mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Cobalt is a metal necessary for the production of batteries in digital devices.

Children in Cobalt Mines in the DRC from  Truthdig.com 

Another Cobalt Mine in DRC from  Change.org 

The Guardian features evidence of Child Labor in DRC Cobalt Mines

Production & Manufacturing

"Toxic Sludge" Lake from Rare Earth Metal Processing in Mongolia

Rare Earth Metals are necessary for the production of the screens of digital devices.

According to Maughan's article, in 2009, China produced 95% of the world's supply of rare earth metals.

“It could be argued that China’s dominance in the rare earth market is less about geology and far more about the country's willingness to take an environmental hit that other countries shy away from.” - Tim Maughan in The Hidden Network that Keeps the World Running

Digital Devices are also largely manufactured in China (from  Supply Chain Management Research )

Distribution

Apple Distribution Center in Pennsylvania

Apple is one of many companies that sell the digital devices that require the metal extraction and processes illustrated in previous maps and images. No toxic lakes to see here...

Use

Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon

Lewis & Clark represents the part of the digital device supply chain where the devices are used. Here, individual consumers often have multiple digital devices that they depend on and use on a daily basis.

My roommates and I working on our assignments in Watzek library at Lewis & Clark College

Disposal

Olusosun Landfill, Nigeria

Where do old devices go when you dispose of them? What happens to all of the outdated devices we get rid of every time an updated device is released?

Olusosun Landfill, Nigeria ( TRT World )

Export of E-Waste ( Basel Action Network )

Electronic waste is largely exported to the Global South.

E-waste generated per capita by country ( Berkeley Political Review )

Aljazeera: "Nigeria faces growing e-waste problem"

Modularity Enables the Shirking of Responsibility and Accountability in Global Supply Chains

In "US Operating Systems at Mid Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX" from Race After the Internet, Tara McPherson quotes Eric Raymond's advice to programmers to "'make [programs] independent'":

“Tools are meant to be ‘encapsulated’ to avoid a tendency to involve programs with each other’s internals... Modules ‘don’t promiscuously share global data,’ and problems can stay ‘local’… ‘it should be easy to replace one end with a completely different implementation without disturbing the other.'"

McPherson goes on to explain how this reveals a

“lenticular approach to the world, an approach which separates object from context, cause from effect.”

In " See No Evil, " Miriam Posner, explains how modularity in supply chain management systems enables capitalism at a global scale:

"How do you manage the complexity of a system that procures goods from a huge variety of locations? You make it modular: when you black-box each component, you don’t need to know anything about it except that it meets your specifications. Information about provenance, labor conditions, and environmental impact is unwieldy when the goal of your system is simply to procure and assemble goods quickly. 'You could imagine a different way of doing things, so that you do know all of that,' said Russell, 'so that your gaze is more immersive and continuous. But what that does is inhibit scale.' And scale, of course, is key to a globalized economy."

Databite No. 86: Tim Maughan -- Start at 13:46 and end at 17:08

"These containers seem to have more agency in the decision-making process than the humans on this ship" - Tim Maughan

Water contamination from copper mine in Chile (Greenspec.com)

From "Indigenous People's Livelihoods at risk in scramble for lithium, the new white gold" ( Reuters Events )

Children in Cobalt Mines in the DRC from  Truthdig.com 

Another Cobalt Mine in DRC from  Change.org 

Digital Devices are also largely manufactured in China (from  Supply Chain Management Research )

My roommates and I working on our assignments in Watzek library at Lewis & Clark College

Olusosun Landfill, Nigeria ( TRT World )

Export of E-Waste ( Basel Action Network )

E-waste generated per capita by country ( Berkeley Political Review )