Few people will be surprised at the revelations of a recent Washington Post article which highlighted the toxic waste being dumped by the manufacturers of solar photovoltaic panels and films into the waterways, soils and other ecosystems of China. The demand for Solar PV largely comes off the back of businesses that want to greenwash their way into our consciences by slapping an acre of solar panels on the roof of their headquarters, knowing full well that solar PV is totally inadequate for powering large-scale offices, data centres and industry. Few of these businesses consider the real benefits to be had from reducing their energy consumption in the first place: after all, givernments and corporations say the economy has to keep growing, don’t they?

But at what cost? One cost is the massive offshoring of manufacturing to places where environmental and human working conditions are, quite frankly, atrocious. This is solely to gain the most product for the least cost. Compact fluorescent lamps are another area where a similar trend is being seen (and which I may cover in a different article). In principle, the use of CFLs is a good thing, but again, at what cost? It doesn’t have to be that way.

[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]