Do you know what happens to your old computer when you discard it?
You probably figure its stripped for parts and recycled, or maybe crushed up and disposed of in accordance with environmental regulations. If still operable, perhaps it was donated to some needy organization or individual, thus helping to bridge the digital divide. Well, guess again.
According to the Basel Action Network, an environmental organization based in Seattle, Washington, a large percentage of used, disposed computer equipment from the United States and Europe winds up dumped in landfills and open spaces in poor Third World Nations, posing untold environmental and health problems for the people of those countries.
In a recently release report, titled “The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa,” BAN claims that the unusable equipment is being donated or sold to developing nations by recycling businesses in the United States as a way to dodge the expense of having to recycle it properly. While their report focused on Nigeria, it says the situation is similar throughout most of the developing world and that most of the outdated computer equipment sent from the United States for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable.
An average computer monitor can contain as much as eight pounds of lead, along with plastics laden with flame retardants and cadmium, all of which can be harmful to the environment and to humans.
In the Nigerian port city of Lagos, the report says, an estimated 500 containers of used electronic equipment enter the country each month, each one carrying about 800 computers, for a total of about 400,000 used computers a month. The majority of the equipment arriving in Lagos is unusable and neither economically repairable or resalable.
BAN has identified 30 recyclers in the United States who had agreed not to export electronic waste to developing countries and they are trying to get it to be common practice to test what they send and label it.The group is also trying to enforce the Basel Convention, a United Nations treaty intended to limit the trade of hazardous waste. The United States is the only developed country that has not ratified the treaty.