Robby Knapp-Geog 125 Blog

 Blog Post 4    The actions that can be done at a national and/or global scale to reduce lithium waste pollution are pretty broad. There is just not enough known about what goes into lithium products (due to company secrecy), not enough research, and not enough people know about the impact it has on the environment for a whole breakdown of lithium products yet (Katwala, 2018). At a global scale, there needs to be a matching desire to reduce lithium waste as there is for lithium resources. Most countries in general are failing at this, as while the demand for lithium is just skyrocketing currently, there almost only seems to be a diaspora of economics or who gets how much lithium made/produced more than the other. However, as someone who genuinely scours the web for truthful information regarding China (which there is barely at all in the mainstream news web), there is to be a lot said for China and its journey to find a way(s) to recycle lithium batteries to lessen the en...

 Blog Post 3 The glass that is on every iPhone, also known as Gorilla Glass, is an extra-durable glass hybrid made from “chemically-strengthened alkali-aluminosilicate” in either a factory in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, USA, or in Shizuoka, Japan (Tech Target, 2013; Corning, 2010). An iPhone’s lithium-ion batteries in recent years have come from one of two companies. One is the Albemarle Corporation, which has brine mines (as lithium-ion’s main ingredients are usually pegmatites or salt lake brines) in Greenbushes, Australia, Clayton Valley, Nevada, and in Salar de Atacama, Chile. The other main supplier for Apple is Sociedad Química y Minera (SQM), whose main mining operations are based in northern Chile’s Tarapacá and Antofagasta desert regions (Albemarle, 2022; SQM, 2018).      My product, especially the lithium battery component, has direct and harmful effects on the environment. The evaporated brine mining fluid mixture of chemicals like manganese, potassium, bo...

 The iPhone The iPhone is one of the most important inventions of the 21st century. It has introduced society to a new world of communication and media-consumption. However, most consumers do not tend to think about what their iPhone is made out of. Apple Inc.'s magnum opus consists of different parts and pieces that are manufactured around the world and brought together to assemble the phone that seems to be able to do it all. In the iPhone consists of materials like lithium, aluminum, copper, gold, iron, palladium, cobalt, among many others. In fact, an iPhone requires around generally 46 elements for it to be properly assembled and manufactured (Pal, 2020). Ananya, Pal. (February 4, 2020). The Cycle of an iPhone .  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/791c02e17f1443e7a1ec48633c135c67 . .

Battle of the Bags One local effect that I did not know that plastic bag waste was the indirect link to malaria that was mentioned in the documentary. I knew of the open sewers with defecated bags, but I did not even think about how, when it rains, the water that interacts with these “poop bags” creates a perfect environment for mosquitos to breed in. This then prompts more mosquitos to come and spread malaria to villages that have this problem (CBC, 2008). One compelling way people in the video were attempting to manage the local impact of plastic bag waste was the way Ireland wanted to manage the issue through taxes on plastic bags, specifically a 30-cent tax. In the video, it states that Ireland’s government announced that plastic bag usage dropped around a whopping 90% (CBC, 2008). Personally, I found Ireland’s, the local and metropolitan plans of the UK’s, and San Francisco’s strategies to be the most realistic, and effective, for dealing with plastic bag waste. All 3 strategies b...