In a giant factory in California, thousands of screens, PCs and other old or unwanted gadgets are picked apart for materials. But what about the billions of other defunct (or not) devices?
Discarded smartphones and other gadgets are poisoning the environment and people in developing countries, where most of the world’s electronic waste (e-waste) is being dumped illegally and now involves criminal gangs, the UN’s environment arm warned in a May 12 report.The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said between 60-90 percent of electronic waste is ending up in
When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday’s newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don’t want and turn it into something you can’t wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner travels deeply into a vast, often hidden,
Anyone living in China doubtless has a sense of the unholy number of people who seem to be involved in the trash trade here, and who will ferret away everything from your cardboard boxes to plastic bottles faster than you can unpack them or consume their contents.
"Your average thrift store in the United States only sells about one-third of the stuff that ends up on its shelves," Adam Minter says. His book explores what happens to the things that don't sell.