Destination of ‘Recycled’ Electronics May Surprise You

by 11/19/07 5 Comments

CNN.com features a story on the disposal of electronic waste, and how cost concerns result in as much as 80 percent of e-waste ending up overseas where it is recycled in an un-environmentally friendly way.

In countries including China, India and Nigeria, the precious metals are removed by hammers, gas burners and bare hands, which results in lead and mercury being leaked into the air. Safety costs in the U.S. make shipping off these electronics to other countries a more cost-effective measure, as it can cost up to 10 times more to recycle electronics in the U.S.

Foreign countries are starting to crack down though, as Hong Kong authorities already returned 85 containers of electronics in 2007, including 20 from the U.S. China also now produces one million tons of e-waste itself according to Greenpeace China, and this number is on the rise.

For more on the proper disposal of e-waste, visit Earth 911′s Electronics page.

Trey Granger

Trey Granger

Trey Granger is a staff member at Earth911.com.


  1. Mey Quiros

    posted on September 5th, 2011 at 4:18 am

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As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.

4 Archived Comments

  1. David

    posted on November 27th, 2009 at 9:05 am

    Trey,

    It is interesting that while you seem to be up to date on the problem of recyclers exporting e-waste, you do not mention the Basel Action Network or their e-Stewards program. (www.BAN.org) BAN is the only organization in the U.S. who’s sole focus is eliminating the toxic e-waste that is being exported, in the name of recycling, but is really only polluting 3rd world countries where there are no recycling laws.

    In fact, several electronic waste recyclers i looked up on your site are not e-Stewards, nor do they actually report what is done or how the waste they collect is actually recycled.

    I will admit that almost any recycling is better than tossing electronic waste into the garbage, however, we are on the doorstep of correct and thorough recycling, lets not let our lack of due diligence prevent us from going through the door.

    David

  2. The Problem with E-Waste

    posted on January 16th, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    [...] the West, where it’s typically cheaper–often, as much as 10 times cheaper–to reprocess our used goods. Much of our e-waste ends up in Asia and Africa, where workers strip the electronics of their [...]

  3. Dennis Brenner

    posted on January 28th, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    do you load e waste loose in containers ?

    I supply corrugated bulkheads that hold back the loose material to avoid spillage once the doors are open.

  4. johnson kinyua mugo

    posted on January 30th, 2010 at 7:42 am

    I would like to state supplying electronics for recycleing any buyer-johnson kinyua from kenya

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