By Joseph LaDou and Sandra Lovegrove from the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at University of California School of Medicine
The near absence of effective regulation and enforcement to control the flow of e-waste is more than an oversight, it is a scandal of epic proportions. To date, industry, government and consumers have taken only cautious and preliminary steps to deal with the e-waste problem. Less than 10% of discarded electronics products are currently recycled. The United States and many other developed countries have exported e-waste primarily to Asia knowing full well that it carried with it a real harm to the poor communities where it would be discarded. There is an urgent need for manufacturers of electronics products to take responsibility for their products from production through to the end-of-life, and for much tighter controls both on the transboundary movement of e-waste and on the manner in which it is recycled. The full article can be downloaded here.
