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As I said in previous posts, consumption leads to waste. This is fairly simple: if we spend our time buying and replacing electronic equipment, this will undoubtedly lead to an issue with disposing of old equipment.

There is all sorts of harmful stuff in an old computer, and other electronic items. Mercury, lead, arsenic and cadmium are all toxic products, which we do not want to add to the groundwater. There is a good summary of the problem stuff in a computer here.

As far as I can tell, in the US and Australia, until very recently this waste has often eventually ended in landfill. Now things are ‘improving’ with US laws stating that companies, such as Dell, who sell computers (etc) should offer ‘trade in’ options. There is little indication, however, what these companies are to do with their waste products.

Australia developed the national computer recycling scheme in 2006, as prior to this, “An estimated 1.6 million computers are thrown away each year, most of them into landfill.” according to Senator Ian Campbell, the then Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage.

I’m going to concentrate on the UK for now, because I actually know what happens to the computer equipment which is disposed in Britain.

Most computers, and other electronics, which are thrown out in Britain go to ‘tips.’ These waste disposal centres are funded by council taxes, and have seperate areas for such articles. They also collect card, organic material, glass, plastics and anything else which may be recycled or re-used.

So, what happens to the computers after they have been deposited here?

Some of them are taken by other people who come to the tip. This used to happen more regularly - there would often be a guy at the tip who sorted through disposed goods and cherry picked what was still of value, and sold it for a pound or two to whoever wanted it. However, this has been clamped down on. VAT, other taxation issues as well as more stringent enforcement of regulation have effectively stopped this practice, although it could potentially be considered a worthwhile service. So what does the tip officially do with waste computers?

They should all be sent to recycling centres. Some are. These places separate the composite parts and re-use or dispose of them safely. However, they are fairly expensive. What many computer disposers do is this: put all machines, monitors, printers etc into a big container and ship them off to West Africa, often Nigeria.

How did I find this out? This is the worrying part. This situation only came to light when I watched a consumer protection program where they said this is what happens to a large percentage of British disposed electronic equipment. However, their problem with this was not that it was a fairly strange way of dealing with a huge amount of waste, it was that some cheeky Nigerians had been harvesting personal and banking information from these machines and using them to perform identity thefts. The fact that we sent our waste to another country was not questioned.

There’s something quite karmic in the fact that this happened. We’re so rich that we’re throwing stuff away happily and shipping our waste thousands of miles, and we only get annoyed about it if the people who get hold of it then use it to rip us off.

The Americans were seemingly no better. They sent theirs to Asia.

In 2002 “”Recycling” of old computers can often mean dumping the discarded components in developing countries such as China, India and Pakistan where valuable materials are extracted by poor people using primitive methods that pose a threat to their health.” Read article here.

This is a pretty big problem. On the program I watched, there were literally thousands of old computer parts floating about in Nigeria. Honestly, there were guys with wheelbarrows full of machines.

The place is swimming with the West’s old computers and consumer electronics. China is no better.

Much of the export of old machines is described as ‘illegal’ by many reports, however, there have been no prosecutions relating to this (whilst the man at the tip HAS been prosecuted for VAT avoidance - I know this to be true).

So what can be done about this? Clearly more regulation is not working, it is just shifting the burden from the individual, to companies who then have the headache of what to do with all these obsolete products (which they created). Companies usually have to pay to dispose of things (is this why governments want it to be their responsibility??) and will pay other companies to handle their waste.

These other companies can make little or no money harvesting what is of value from computers, instead they ship them somewhere else.

Doctor Alban wasn’t lying when he told us “it began in Africa.” In a form of perverse symbiosis, Africa, where human life first started, has now become the dumping ground for all our most hazardous and harmful waste. That’s not right, is it?

The problem? We all want the latest and greatest technology. Look at the popularity of the gadget and technology blogs. 21st century westerners are fascinated by gadgets and having the biggest, flattest and most flashy piece of kit. When we buy these, we dump our old equipment.

But we’re responsible, so we take them to waste disposal centres, after a stay of execution in the cupboard draw/garage/attic. Alternatively, we leave them out at certain times when our council or other local waste management operation will collect this stuff, safe in the knowledge that it will be disposed of safely, and not end up in landfill. It probably won’t. At least not in this country.