Much toxic computer waste lands in Third World SAN JOSE, Calif.
(AP) What happened to that old computer after you sold it to a
secondhand parts dealer? Environmental groups say there's a good
chance it ended up in a dump in the developing world, where
thousands of laborers burn, smash and pick apart electronic
waste to scavenge for the precious metals inside unwittingly
exposing themselves and their surroundings to innumerable toxic
A new report documents one such "cyber-age nightmare" a cluster
of villages in southeastern China where computers still bearing
the labels of their one-time owners in America are ripped apart
and strewn along rivers and fields. The authors of the report,
called Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia, hope it
puts more pressure on U.S. companies and lawmakers to increase
domestic recycling efforts. Investigators who visited the waste
sites in Guiyu, China, in December witnessed men, women and
children pulling wires from computers and burning them at night,
fouling the air w