Our Tech Addiction Is Creating a ‘Toxic Soup’

It’s time to address the crisis

Illustrations: Judson Collier

The pool at the bottom of the Lavender Pit pit is the color of rust, burnt red and bleeding. The pit is part of the inactive Copper Queen mining complex in Bisbee, Arizona. On the crater’s rim is a commemorative plaque that asks, “Why dig the pit?” Because, the plaque goes on to answer, “every electronic gizmo from refrigerators to iPods needs copper wiring.”

The Lavender Pit opened in the 1950s, the midpoint of a century scientists call the Great Acceleration for the huge — and swift — impact that modern human life had on the planet. The period was marked by changes in how natural resources were extracted and used, especially for new technologies. These changes can be pinpointed in time by the emergence of technofossils, artifacts composed of materials that occur rarely or not at all in the absence of technological and scientific intervention. Think purified forms of iron, aluminum, and titanium; artificially isolated forms of metals like neodymium; or synthetic glasses and plastics. All these materials and more go into the making of today’s digital devices.

You can imagine your old television or even the smartphone you’re reading this on becoming the technofossils of tomorrow. But everything digital devices are made from and that enables them to operate was, at…