Dell, throught their senior manager of environmental sustainability, Mark Newton, announced: "If it's not working, Dell considers it to be electronic waste, and they will not export it to a developing country. Period." This comes in response to the growing awareness that some companies are shipping their electronic waste to developing nations who dismantle the e-waste in polluting and unhealthy ways to salvage potentially valuable minerals and materials.
In the 1990's, Europe, Japan and some US states set up e-waste 'recycling' systems. But many countries did not have the capacity to deal with the sheer quantity of e-waste they generated or with its hazardous nature. Therefore, they began exporting the problem to developing countries where laws to protect workers and the environment are inadequate or not enforced. It is also cheaper to 'recycle' waste in developing countries; the cost of glass-to-glass recycling of computer monitors in the US is ten times more than in China.
If you are concerned about where your e-waste goes, you can look up proper disposal sites near you at Earth911.com.
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