Computer waste fuels toxic trade

“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.””

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