As this month’s digital television conversion makes tens of millions of analog TVs obsolete and Americans continue to trash old computers and cell phones at alarming rates, FRONTLINE/World presents a global investigation into the dirty secret of the digital age — the dumping of hundreds of millions of pounds of electronic waste around the world each year.
In Ghana, a man sorts through electronics to be sold for parts.
Tracking “e-waste” to the slums of Ghana and the far-off provinces in China, producer/correspondent Peter Klein and his team of graduate journalism students fan out around the world to document the growing impact of this toxic trash on those who desperately scavenge it for precious metals. They also explore the potential threats to privacy, as criminal gangs attempt to harvest data from America’s old computers and cell phones and exploit it. Also in this hour, a popular competition to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs in the Middle East and a pioneering effort to make an affordable wheelchair for the developing world.
Frontline World's Senior Associate Producer Marjorie McAfee shares her most memorable moment while shooting the VIETNAM: Wheels of Change segment for Digital Dumping Ground.
The Vietnam shoot was a lot of fun although I'd kind of not through the fact that being pregnant in tropical heat and humidity would not only make my ankles swell up by 9 a.m. every day but would generally also make me light headed. We shot in a spinal injury recovery clinic one day (although that footage didn't make it into the final story) and I have pretty bad white coat syndrome anyway. So that combined with all these poor people who were in a lot of pain (most of them were injured in traffic or work accidents) combined with being pregnant in the heat did not go over well. I had to keep taking "breaks" from filming to go sit in the air conditioned cab to keep from passing out. It got so bad that I had to ask my co-producer to conduct the interviews while she shot, because I wasn't sure I'd make it through the interview without barfing or falling over. Frontline World's Senior Associate Producer Marjorie Mcafee
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