Computer waste fuels toxic trade Jul 30, 2007, 21 :45 UTC (3 Talkback[s]) (6346 reads) (Other stories by Bruce Byfield)
"Sarah Westervelt, toxics research analyst for the Basel Action Network, notes that Canada only defines high-tech equipment as waste if it is disassembled, regardless of whether it is functional or not. Similarly, the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States has ignored the Basel definitions of toxic waste by excluding such things as circuit boards, which the EPA doesn't consider to be waste because the boards still have economic value. As a result, high-tech waste continues to be shipped overseas, despite the protests of the receiving countries who often lack the resources to implement laws of their own.
"Can you imagine what would happen if some country did that to the United States?" Puckett asks. "There'd probably be a war.""
