Intoduction

 [A young boy on a mound of E-waste. ]

Imagine you are a young child sitting around broken electronics, looking off in to the distance seeing piles and piles of discarded technologies. Every day you watch your mom, dad, brother, and sister pick through the trash in order to potentially find value in it. You get up every morning and think about what machines would be dismantled by your bare hands for money that will keep your family from starving. While you and your family are picking apart the broken electronics you will be unknowingly inhaling toxins of all different sorts, most of which could harm you in the future.

This might not be your every day routine or something you worry about while sitting at home or at school, but this happens to people around the world on a daily basis. E-waste consists of computers, iPods, TV's, printers, hand held games, and other everyday electronic appliances that have been thrown away. There are approximately 400 million electronic items thrown away per year. 26.9 million Televisions, 205.5 million computers, and 140.3 million cell phones were disposed of in ONE year in 2007 (The Office of Solid Waste, 2008). This number increases every year.

Consumers need to know more about what happens after they have finished with the products they buy. Only 13% of E-waste is recycled (11 facts about e-waste source). The rest of it is put in a landfill, incinerated, or exported to developing countries. Disposing of E-waste using these methods is harmful to humans and the environment. There are thousands of different substances in E-waste most, if inhaled can cause cancer. Examples of these toxins are lead, mercury, and cadmium.

 Some electronic disposal practices are unhealthy and morally wrong for humans and the environment .There are many solutions to this problem ranging from simple to complex solutions. Increasing the amount of E-waste that is recycled along with making better products could be considered simple solutions while a cultural shift in how we view electronic consumption could be considered one of the more complex solutions to the problems E-waste creates.