“There are those who are beginning to say that the main product of our time and our biggest legacy to posterity will be huge amounts of waste – indestructible, toxic and mounting up.
80 ships carrying 63,000 containers arrive in Hong Kong harbour every day. It is beyond even the most dedicated customs official to check all of them for e-waste.
Investigators filmed a “recycled” computer from the US Environmental Protection Agency (USA) in an illegal storage facility in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong, most likely on route by pirates to China for unregulated recycling.
“Every year, up to 50 million tons of electronic waste – computers, television sets, mobile phones, household appliances – are discarded in the developed world. Since recycling is costly, around 75 percent of this waste is shipped to countries like India, China or Ghana, where it is dumped illegally, polluting the environment and affecting the lives of those forced to live with it.”
— Up to two-thirds of Europe’s e-waste is recycled illegally and out of the official system
— Even though the trafficking of e-waste is illegal under international law, it often ends up in urban-mining dumpsites.
“TCL hopes to use Baidu’s data on what sorts of products are disposed of when and where to predict the flow of junk, optimizing routes and locating recycling stations more strategically over time.”
On the e-waste trail (Al Jazeera)
China’s race to turn trash to cash (Yahoo!)