Donated PCs End Up in Third-World Landfills, Not Classrooms

Getting rid of disused PCs is an underappreciated enigma in the U.S., where leasing and service companies ofttimes simply whisk away old equipment with equal reason the corporations that paid for them don't have to bother. on the other hand PCs, especially monitors, contain tremendous amounts of lead and other heavy metals, qualifying them as toxic waste in greatest in quantity states.

Donating aging PC to poor countries appear to bes like a great solution; U companies earn rid of them and poor countries realize free PCs. But, it make go rounds out, huge numbers of those PC extreme point up in landfills rather than classrooms or other useful locations, according to a report from the environmental assemblage The Basel Action Network.

Of the 400000 units received in Nigeria each month for example, 75 percent are either severed or unusable for other reasons.

The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and other assemblages sponsor The Computer Takeback Campaign, which provides information upon PCs and toxic waste, as well as a list of recycler that have promised to adhere to eco-friendly recycling processe

Copyright ?© 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserv Originally appearing in CIO Central.