Home/Posts Tagged ‘e-waste’
Posts Tagged ‘e-waste’
Politics, Pollution, Oct 26th, 2011,
Last week representatives from over 170 countries met at a UN environmental conference in Colombia to work towards a ban on the exportation of hazardous waste from rich countries to the developing world. The measure is to ratify an amendment to the Basel Convention, a treaty forged in 1989 with the aim of ensuring that individual states take care of their own waste instead of dumping it in poor countries. The US, which is the top exporter of e-waste, still hasn’t signed on. The US has no rules for exporting its e-waste, most of which ends up in China as…
Tags: China, e-waste, export, japan, Philippines, toxic waste, US
Politics, Recycling, Feb 8th, 2011,
Minerals used in electronic devices such as mobile phones and laptops are becoming increasingly scarce. Despite this, large quantities are thrown into landfills when such high-tech products are considered obsolete, something that unfortunately occurs with increasing frequency (see Moore’s Law). The European Parliament is proposing stricter standards for the recycling of e-waste. From a Deutsche Welle report: The Parliament wants member countries to be collecting at least 85 percent of electronic waste by 2016. Depending on the type of device, it wants a reuse quota of 55 to 75 percent. It also wants to introduce stricter export regulations to hinder…
Tags: conflict, e-waste, electronic waste, european parliament, minerals, Recycling
climate change, Politics, sustainable living, Videos & Documentaries, Oct 12th, 2010,
“The Choice Between Poverty and Poison” Parts of China are awash in electronic waste, or “e-waste”; a rising tide of circuit boards, glass monitors and other bits and bobs of computers that we don’t want anymore due to their having become passé and no longer suited to our hyper-modern, technology and consumer-driven lifestyles. Chinese towns, such as the now infamous Guiyu in the south of the country, are dedicated e-waste recycling centers, dominated, darkened and scarred by the toxic trash industry. In very poor and basic conditions, metals such as lead, copper and gold are extracted from recycled e-waste via…
Tags: China, computer recycling, computer waste, e-waste, electronic waste, Recycling
Politics, Pollution, Recycling, Sep 13th, 2010,
Old computers and other e-waste from British government departments have been discovered at dumpsites in African countries and in containers headed for the continent, according to the UK’s environment agency. The chairman of the agency, Lord Smith, warned that the amount of illegally exported e-waste is rising and that in addition to health and environmental concerns, it is also a threat to British national security, due to the risk that sensitive information could still be stored in the computers’ hardware. He said that waste from the UK, which includes computers, monitors, televisions and DVD players, is sent to countries in…
Tags: Africa, British, computers, e-waste, Europe, European, government, Greenpeace, illegal, Nigeria, UK
Science & Technology, sustainable living, Oct 17th, 2009,
For at least several years now, there have been a number of ways to dispose of your old, unwanted cell phones. Some places will accept them for recycling—and may even pay you for them. If it’s one that has a pay-as-you-go plan (no contract involved), some people simply pass them on to friends or family to use. Most, however, probably pitch them in the nearest garbage can and move on their way. Now there is a whole new, innovative way to get rid of that pesky phone that’s been taking up space in your desk drawer: EcoATMs. EcoATM (formerly known…
Tags: cell phones, e-waste, EcoATM, recycle, retail
