E-Waste Poses Growing Threat Around the World

Friday, February 26, 2010
(photo: Wikipedia)

As if existing air and water pollution aren’t enough to worry about for countries like China, India and others, waste from consumer and home electronics is threatening to become a huge problem unto itself. A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme examined 11 countries and their rate of accumulating e-waste, which includes everything from computers to cell phones to refrigerators. The findings showed China’s collection of old computers will jump by 200% to 400% by 2020, while its discarded cell phones will increase sevenfold. India is looking at its e-waste from phones to increase 18 times and its computer junk to climb by 500%.

 
In China, a large portion of e-waste is incinerated in order to recover valuable components, such as gold, but this method also creates toxic air pollution.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 

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