PCs: the environmental cost

Obsolete computers from the west are causing an ecological disaster in developing countries, despite schemes encouraging consumers to recycle them.

A report by a coalition of US environmental groups has found that up to 80 per cent of PCs brought to recycling centres in the US end up as toxic waste in the third world, damaging the environment and endangering human life.

The report, called "Exporting Harm: the high-tech trashing of Asia", shows that countries such as the US have so far tried to side-step the issue of dangerous pollutants in high-tech waste by exporting the problem overseas.

It paints a grim picture of an ever-expanding problem. In one example, in China' s Guangdong province, just four hours away from Hong Kong, 100,000 migrant workers are employed to break apart computers by hand.

PCs and monitors contain large quantities of lead, mercury and cadmium among other toxic chemicals.

Workers have also been using riverside acid baths to extract gold and silver, and breaking lead-laden cathode ray tubes and burning plastics.

The entire area has become so polluted that drinking water has to be trucked in from 30 miles away, and workers, paid just $1.50 a day, are given no protection from the harmful chemicals.

The report, by groups including the Basel Action Network and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, cites the US's failure to ratify the Basel Convention, which is supposed to stop the export of high-tech waste to developing countries.

It is the only major developed world country not to have signed the UN treaty. In a statement a spokesman for the Basel Action Network described it as a cyber-age nightmare: "They call this recycling, but it's really dumping by another name. Yet to our horror, we further discovered that rather than banning it, the United States government is actually encouraging this ugly trade."

However, according to Vidhya Alakeson, senior policy adviser for the European sustainable development think tank Forum for the Future, Europe has no reason to be smug.

She told silicon.com: "Despite the fact most PC makers have proper PC recycling schemes in place, they are not doing anywhere near enough to communicate this, because they just don't see the benefit."

She said 90 per cent of European electronic waste ended up in landfill sites.

Alakeson added the EU is set to legislate on the matter this year, but any directive will take five years to implement.