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General
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Written by Daniel
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Wednesday, 06 August 2008 11:53 |
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Congress, Greenpeace Take the Fight to E-Waste
Jason Mick (Blog) - August 6, 2008 12:22 PM The U.S. government aims to stamp out trash exporting, while environmental lobbies put pressure on big business
The “tech trash” subject is a controversial one in the U.S. and abroad. For the last decade, the U.S. has been shipping growing amounts of electronics trash to foreign countries, particularly third world and developing nations. China is among the prime targets, and despite laws put in place against the practice, the trash continues to pour in.
The U.S. government, particularly Congress, has grown increasingly upset about the image the U.S. is projecting by shipping its tech trash overseas. Now they are looking to act with new e-waste legislation on the table. U.S. Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, last week introduced legislation which would ban the export of toxic e-waste to developing nations. Analysts predict the legislation might have enough support to pass by next year.
Part of the reason for the rise in concern, analysts say is the eyesore of a problem is getting harder to ignore. With Americans owning roughly 3 billion gadgets, including desktops, laptops, cell phones, and PDAs, there is a tremendous amount of tech trash generated each year. In 1998, 20 million computers were estimated to be disposed of annually. In 2005, despite increased recycling rates the estimate was up to 37 million.
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