Good people, Timesonline recently reported that Japan’s high-tech rubbish dumps – the vast “urban mines” of landfill outside every big city – have grown so huge that the country now ranks among the biggest natural resource nations in the world. This report states that:
Tens of millions of defunct mobile phones, discarded televisions, PCs and MP3 players conceal a “virtual lode” of hundreds of tonnes of precious metals. An even greater seam may be lurking forgotten – but not yet discarded – in Japan’s attics and garages.
According to new calculations by the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan has unwittingly accumulated three times as much gold, silver and indium than the entire world uses or buys in a year. In the case of platinum, Japan’s urban mines may contain six times annual global consumption.
You will notice that one high-tech product that rarely finds its way to these rubbish dumps is the automobile. As I write, thousands of used Japanese cars (kaunjika wa magalimoto) are being shipped to other countries particularly in Africa. Even though governments in Africa have regulations concerning roadworthiness of vehicles in place, many people still cling to their old unsafe cars simply because of economic problems. They can bribe the traffic policemen just to make sure that their car remains on the road.They usually drive these kinds of cars in remote roads and in most cases, they overload them so that they should gain from them as much as possible in their twilight.But time finally comes when such cars become irreparable!
Pic from Joshua Ngalande's Facebook Profile
Scrap cars are accumulating in many countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. People might not easily notice this trend because these cars are not in one place. For instance, if you go into the suburbs of Blantyre in Malawi, you will easily find that a number of households have at least one scrap car in their backyard. One might be mistaken that they keep these cars as souvenirs but no, they just do not know how to dispose them.In light of this, I would like to propose that companies like Toyota should be following up these scrap cars so that they should be recycled. Some dealers can be involved in the business of collecting scrap cars and relaying them to companies like Toyota and the like.This will help to preserve our environment and also to ensure that our natural resources are depleted at a slower rate.
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23 users commented in " Disposal of used Japanese cars "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptGood people, Timesonline recently reported that Japan’s high-tech rubbish dumps – the vast “urban mines” of landfill outside every big city – have grown so huge that the country now ranks among the biggest natural resource nations in the world. This report states that: Tens of millions of defunct mobile phones, discarded televisions, PCs and MP3 players conceal a “virtual lode” of hundreds of tonnes of precious metals. An even greater seam may be lurking forgotten – but not yet discarded – in [...]
I’m not sure that the car manufacturers need to be responsible for managing the recycling. There are companies who already specialize in that and make a profit doing it. What I find the greatest shame of our times is that we so easily discard items that work in favor of new items. Not only is it bad for the environment, but others could easily get use out of some of our “junk”.
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Well, Japanese has shown that are smart again. But they should take some responsibilities also, because disposal of used cars could be damaging other parts of the world like Africa.
Everyone should be worried about this problem, because it is going to be big, if it is not already.
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It’s kind of scary because the pollution levels must be astronomical.
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I think that there should be an organization or regulations to control this kind of actions, It is true that ones garbage is others mine of gold, there must be a limit on how old the cars must be to be taken out of japan
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I think that proper disposal of things is supposed to be a responsibility of the manufacturer because they are the one who made it so probably they have some solutions on cleaning it up. For me it is not fair to dump the used cars to Africa or any other areas because they will cause environmental distruction that will later affect many people.
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It’s a breaking news that Contributing factors to the viability of the vehicles for export include strict inspection tests in Japan, strict environmental laws in Japan that make vehicle disposal expensive in Japan.
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Its just staggering the amount of E-Waste being generated on a daily basis. And the fact that most computer mother boards contain many toxic substance doesn’t sit well with me. That stuff eventually finds it way into the ground water supply.
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That’s great, I never thought about Disposal of used Japanese cars like that before.
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Japan is close to Russia. So in Russian cities like Vladivostok one can rarely find a car that doesn’t have a right-side steering wheel and is not a used Japanese car
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It’s mind boggling to think of all the toxic chemicals in all that e-waste, all the old batteries just waiting to burst and leak.
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there are ways to dispose of cars to recycle the materials for the most part that are environmentally stable. The Japanese are not to blame for making the cars in my opinion. They make better cars then the U.S.A does by far , and sadly more economical as well. There plants in the USA are not losing money like ford and GM. The makers are not responsible either for what the end consumer does with said cars ( recycling them or not )
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Where I live there is a junk yard full of dead cars that will pay 200 dollars for a car that has just kapoot. I imagine they set it up and sell off the usable parts. It is a great way to get rid of used cars here.
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Japan is close to Russia. So in Russian cities like Vladivostok one can rarely find a car that doesn’t have a right-side steering wheel and is not a used Japanese car
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@Mark: The fact that there are companies that specialize in recycling might be true in the case of developed countries but in developing countries like Malawi, the situation is different. Which is why I think that the manufacturers themselves are better placed to step in.
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Japans secret wealth is in their junkyards and attics. In Africa,old cars and clothes come in handy for the poor. When local fashion is taken out of the equation, old clothing is quite valuable.
Richard´s last blog post..Nepal Has Google Friend Connect
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Japan is very popular of its high technology gadgets and new models of cars…
Why don’t they just donate those cars if they would no longer use it…
Or they can use it for fun raising activities letting Japanese people donate their old/junk cars…
Then later on, recycle it.. then in that way they’re able to save those metal materials used in making the cars…
Natasha David´s last blog post..Summer Water Resolutions
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why not to bury it in your garden?
))
take care!
Monica O.
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Clement Nyirenda says:
June 16th, 2009 at 11:31 am
@Dchudzanie: That is not good for the environment.
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LOL.In my country,Indonesia. You can find a lot of used Japanese, European and American cars. You even get it without tax deduction.Thanks for sharing
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LOL. Wonder how many people are in the back of the truck in the picture.
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Clement, it’s not only the used vehicles that need proper disposal in Africa. That is probably one of the most threatening. However, in Africa we need to start practising proper disposal of a whole lot of things – from medical waste, dry cells, plastics in general and other waste. Plastics and other paper substances are probably some of the best “recycleable” materials. Proper separation of such materials from other waste and recycling (and reusing) thereafter is what we need. Should we, Malawians, be depleting our hard earned resources to import plastic bags, again and again and again?
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Clement Nyirenda says:
March 13th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
You are very right, Khumbo.
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I would really appreciate if you could use your name when commenting.Using just keywords makes your comment seem spammy, and it's liable to get deleted.Please read my comment policy for more details.Many thanks for your cooperation!
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