Electronic Ecosystems

As a designer, at some point David Kousemaker became interested in finding where our old phones and electronics in general end up once we in the western world throw them away. His interest took him to parts of Indonesia, China, Brazil and Thailand, among other places. There he observed not only how things like mobile phones are broken down, recycled, rebuilt etc, he also saw how entire industries and ecosystems form around these practices. Through his photos and blog entries you can follow his travels and see some of the highlights. David Kousemaker met up with me here in Amsterdam to talk about how he got into this subject and what he learned from the journey about just how big an impact our love of gadgets is having on this world.