E-waste is a lousy career

90% of e-waste end up in landfills in developing countries where e-waste workers are paid as little as 1.50 US dollars per day for unprotected work with toxics that make them sick.

Where did your old computer end up?

Most of our old electronics end up in e-waste sites in Asia and Africa. Computers found in these sites come from Australia, Japan, England, USA, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Denmark. Well…from all over the world!

In Europe, only a third of all e-waste ends up in the official recycling systems. The remaining two thirds are either improperly re-cycled, exported, or simply thrown out as waste.

What’s happening at an e-waste site?

Workers dismantle the electronics by hand and remove materials that have value. Chemicals are often used to separate the various materials. The useless parts are burned.

E-waste is extremely toxic

Investigators from Toxics Link were inspecting a typical e-waste site in India. They became dizzy within just 1 hour of breathing the heavy air pollution. But this is not all…

E-waste workers are completely unprotected

The workers at these e-waste sites work long hours and are completely unaware of the toxics that surround them. In most cases, the only thing they have to “protect” them from the toxic fumes are portable household fans. Many are children.

So what can we do?

Solutions include electronic products without toxics that are designed for upgrade, reuse, and recycling. “Extended producer responsibility” / “take back” implies that producers take responsibility for the whole life-cycle of their products.