“Invisible” Pollution? Knowledge Gridlock in Regulatory Science on Electronics Toxics (2023)
Wen-Ling Tu (Author)
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Volume: 17
Issue: 4
Pages: 435-461
“High-tech” provides a cachet of futuristic wonders to localities claiming cutting-edge technological research and industrial innovation. But the high-tech electronic manufacturing processes release hundreds of chemicals and are no doubt ridden with extremely high but hidden environmental health risks. This article aims to increase our understanding of “ignorance” about electronics hazards in the Asian context. It argues that the electronics industries have been under constant innovation, and novel uses of chemicals are introduced to the industrial operation at a much faster pace than the health and environmental assessment can work to comprehend the impacts of the chemicals. In such a context, regulatory science has often failed to effectively monitor and control toxic waste discharges in the high-tech electronics sector. Taking several high-tech pollution disputes in Taiwan as examples, and based on interviews with experts in pollution regulation, this paper discusses multiple constraints on scientific advance in studying toxics that are exacerbated by lagging regulations. These are further entangled with research resource limitations, privileging of high-tech industries in suppressing negative information about toxicity risks, and knowledge repression within the scientific community due to dependence on government and industry, all of which has crippled building knowledge for effective regulatory science–resulting in knowledge gridlock.
...MoreArticle Hsin-Hsing Chen (2023) Introduction: Science, Law, and Industrial Toxic Exposure. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 404-408).
Similar Citations
Article
Kodama, Yoichi;
Fujimura, Shuzo;
(2011)
Technology Diffusion in a Chemical Company: A Case Study on the Development of Surface Protection Tape for Semiconductor Wafer in Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Article
Paul Jobin;
(2023)
The Valuation of Contaminated Life: RCA in Taiwan and the Compensation of Toxic Exposure
Book
Daniela Zetti;
(2014)
Das Programm der elektronischen Vielfalt: Fernsehen als Gemeinplatz in der BRD, 1950-1980
Article
Mills, Mara;
(2008)
Another Etymology for “Bionic”: Hearing Aids and Disability History at Kent State
Article
Burns, Russell W.;
(2006)
The Evolution of Modern British Electronics, 1930-1945
Article
Lécuyer, Christophe;
Ueyama, Takahiro;
(2013)
The Logics of Materials Innovation: The Case of Gallium Nitride and Blue Light Emitting Diodes
Article
Sack, Edgar A.;
Laws, David A.;
(2012)
Westinghouse: Microcircuit Pioneer from Molecular Electronics to ICs
Article
Segal, Michael;
(2012)
Material History: Learning from Silicon
Book
Orton, J. W.;
(2004)
The Story of Semiconductors
Article
Shimizu, Hiroshi;
(2010)
Pitfalls of Open Innovation: The Technological Trajectory in Laser Diodes in the United States and Japan
Thesis
Gabrys, Jennifer;
(2007)
The Natural History of Electronics
Book
Chia-Ling Wu;
(2023)
Making Multiple Babies: Anticipatory Regimes of Assisted Reproduction
Article
Evan Hepler-Smith;
(July 2019)
Molecular Bureaucracy: Toxicological Information and Environmental Protection
Article
Christy Spackman;
Gary A. Burlingame;
(June 2018)
Sensory politics: The tug-of-war between potability and palatability in municipal water production
Article
Laura Maxim;
(2025)
The Birth of Green Chemistry: A Political History
Chapter
Topçu, Sezin;
(2013)
Chernobyl Empowerment? Exporting “Participatory Governance” to Contaminated Territories
Article
Scott W. Schwartz;
(2017)
Programmed Materials: An Archeology of Machinic Responsibility
Book
Schlitz, Michael;
(2012)
The Money Doctors from Japan: Finance, Imperialism, and the Building of the Yen Bloc, 1895--1937
Article
Chen, Dung-Sheng;
Deng, Chung-Yeh;
(2007)
Interaction between Citizens and Experts in Public Deliberation: A Case Study of Consensus Conferences in Taiwan
Book
Greene, J. Megan;
(2008)
The Origins of the Developmental State in Taiwan: Science Policy and the Quest for Modernization
Be the first to comment!