Still reeling from last week’s look at our e-waste exporting habits, we came across the following AP piece on China’s problem - dealing with it.

Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation’s skies and rivers. Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to come by. However, experts agree that it is overwhelmingly a problem of the developing world. They estimate about 70 percent of the 20-50 million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped in China, with most of the rest going to India and poor African nations. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is ten times cheaper to export e-waste than to dispose of it at home.

What a nice way to start off the week.