Title: Responsible Recycling vs Global Dumping – Electronics TakeBack Coalition
Headings: Responsible Recycling vs Global Dumping
Responsible Recycling vs Global Dumping
Responsible recycling
Global e-Waste Dumping
Primitive Processing Contaminates Workers, Residents
Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia
How much e-waste do we export each year?
Federal GAO Report Finds E-Waste Exports Handled Unsafely
CNN Report: “China: The electronic wastebasket of the world”

Content: ”Taizhou, China April 2004. ©2006 Basel Action Network (BAN)
In these countries, the e-waste ends up in backyard recycling operations, often literally behind peoples’ homes. One example is Guiyu, China, an area where a lot of our e-waste goes. They use crude and unsafe methods of taking apart our old computers and TVs to get to and remove the metals, which they can sell, causing great harm in the process. These dangerous practices include: Bashing open cathode ray tubes with hammers, exposing the toxic phosphor dust inside. Cooking circuit boards in woks over open fires to melt the lead solder, breathing in toxic lead fumes. Burning wires in open piles to melt away the plastics (to get at the copper inside). Burning the plastic casings, creating dioxins and furans – some of the most poisonous fumes you can breathe. Throwing the unwanted (but very hazardous) leaded glass into former irrigation ditches
Dumping pure acids and dissolved heavy metals directly into their rivers.