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The Information Age has created an electronics industry that is the fastest growing manufacturing industry in the world. With this growth comes rapid product obsolescence resulting in an ever-growing waste stream consisting of electronic waste or e-waste.
E-waste - including computers, TV's, cell phones, and other electronic products - is growing approximately 4 times faster than other waste streams. Experts estimate that 35 to 40 million tons of e-waste was generated worldwide in 2010. Unfortunately, it is estimated that less than 15% of the e-waste generated is being properly recycled.
Instead, the vast majority of e-waste is stored in basemaents or warehouses with no solution in sight. Even more alarming is that most of the e-waste that is being "dealt with" is simply dumped in landfills, or shipped off to developing countries in Africa or Asia where impoverished workers use extremely crude techniques in an attempt to extract the value from the old electronics. This practice has become one of the greatest environmental travesties of our time as it results in terrible environmental damage and causes horrible health problems for the people in those communities.
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| Click on the picture above to see the toxic dangers of Electronic Waste in China & India |
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| Environmental Issues
The bulk of e-waste ends up dumped in municipal landfills or illegally shipped to developing countries for crude processing. These practices cause major problems:
1) E-waste contains significant amounts of toxic or hazardous materials such as heavy metals (mercury, lead, etc), brominated fire retardant compounds and polyvinyl chlorides. When e-waste is dumped in landfills or crudely processed in developing countries, these toxins leach into the soil and groundwater causing serious environmental damage, crop deficiencies, birth defects, and serious illnesses.
2) When e-waste is dumped in landfills, the world misses the opportunity to recycle the plastics, steel, aluminum and precious metals that were used in the manufacturing of that old device. Then, in the absence of recycled elements, virgin materials are required in the manufacturing of new electronic equipment - which puts great pressure on the earth's limited non-renewable resources.
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| Click on the picture above to see the movie trailer for Digital Dump - the story of the illegal and immoral international electronics waste trade seen through the lens of one African country. Shot in Lagos Nigeria for the Basel Action Network. |
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| The Recycling Game
Many companies claiming to recycle e-waste are actually collecting equipment to be STRIPPED & SHIPPED.
Parts of computers that are readily re-usable - including hard drives that usually contain highly confidential data - are stripped from the machines and used to create refurbished or hybrid computers for resale.
The left over components and chasis are often shipped to developing countries where toxic components are burned, dumped, or smashed apart by impoverished workers and children without proper protection.
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