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Digital Dumping and the Global ‘E-Cycling’ Scam
The next time you get a scam mail from Nigeria, don't ask me how the scammer got your information, especially if you don't know where your old PC is. Yes, the one you gave to a recycler or dropped off with a charity for a tax deduction after "erasing" your data. It turns out that erasing data or reformatting your hard disk does not completely eliminate data.
The Basel Action Network (BAN), a group that monitors the movement of electronic waste around the world, gathered hard-drive memory devices from old computers exported to Nigeria and had them analyzed by forensic data recovery experts. What did it find? It found personal e-mail correspondence, country reports, business letters, banking information, databases, personal letters discussing private legal matters, resumés, disciplinary letters and other cans of worms-all from computers that have been discarded by their owners.
BAN attests that "while many people assume that recyclers will clean their hard drives of data before sending them to reuse facilities, many of the hard drives recovered from computers in Lagos contained a great deal of confidential information."
About 20 million computers are discarded in the United States annually. The federal government alone disposes of 10,000 computers weekly. The advent of flat-screen monitors and digital technology in televisions and advancements in practically every type of consumer electronics device certainly translates into an increase in e-waste generation.
And have you ever wondered where the discarded equipment goes? "We may think we are doing the right thing by giving our old electronics to a recycler or a free collection event," says Sarah Westerville, BAN's e-Stewardship program director. "But many of those businesses calling themselves recyclers are little more than international waste distributors. They take your electronic items for free, or pocket your recycling fee, and then simply load them onto a sea-going container, and ship them to China, India or Nigeria."
About 500 40-foot shipping containers arrive at the port of Lagos in Nigeria every month loaded with old equipment. It is estimated that there are about 400,000 computers among this assortment of electronics. However, only 25 percent of them are reusable or repairable. As in most African countries, there is no waste management, collection or recycling program in Nigeria. What becomes of the unusable and unrepairable electronics is better left to the imagination.
The Basel Action Network investigated Nigeria's e-waste situation and detailed its findings in a shocking report. "We saw people using e-waste to fill in swamps. Whenever the piles got too high, they would torch them. Residents complained about breathing the fumes. We saw kids roaming barefoot over this material, not to mention chicken and goats, which wind up in the local diet."
According to the report, materials at the dump are a dangerous mix of toxic ash, broken CRT glass, dead animals, medical wastes, used chemical containers and food scraps, which creates conditions for contamination and infection.
BAN investigators attest that Lagos residents complain that they constantly breathe in fumes from these fires. Most of them do not know that they are faced with any danger from inhaling these highly hazardous emissions of brominated and chlorinated dioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metal emissions.
BAN warns that as gruesome as the findings are, they may represent only the tip of the iceberg. Because there is virtually no data concerning the global e-waste trade, the components of e-waste are usually shrouded in mystery. So no one knows for sure what else may be in the mix.
This article is available in its entirety at TruthDig.com, where it originally appeared.
27 Comments so far
Show AllI'd say holy shit, but I'm not really surprised. I'm not in the habit of getting a new computer every time there's a new model, but every couple of years, maybe. I've already decided my current laptop will go to a program in DC that trains homeless residents in computer skills so they can get a job. But I don't plan on getting rid of it anytime soon.
Every couple of years???
My 1998 Dell 450mhz/640 meg machine does everything I need it to do. I have no plans to get anything else. The only problem is that it doesn't play the new flash 10 format used on youtube starting in '08. And even that is only because flash video is deliberately very processor-inefficient - no doubt part of a scheme for force new PC purchases.
The US stands alone in the civilized world in refusing to adopt the lead-and-toxic-free RoHS standards, and manufacturer recycling responsibility, for electronic goods. The US is becoming a dumping ground for toxic goods that cannot be sold in other countries. It then goes to the third world to poison them.
I used to be addicted to computer gaming. Computers go obsolete very quickly when that's what you use them for.
Plus, thoughout my childhood, my computers were from salvaged computers my dad would bring home from work, and yes it'd be a new one every couple of years.
Same here on computer gaming zmann. My last biggest computer game that I ever played well was my name.
Not surprising. I never played that game, but I liked the movie.
I played the game and I eventually saw the movie. I thought the movie sucked compared to the game. The first MP game I thought was better than the second. A third one is supposed to come out somewhere in the future.
Does anyone know if there are any legitimate and safe ways to dispose of e-waste or to recycle it?
Nothing electronic is safe, regardless of where it's stored. For true safety, it's best to keep all personal and/or confidential communication off line, anyway.
These toxic dumps are a truly deplorable thing, regardless of what information can be "mined" from them.
There are software applications that can completely cleanse data off the hard disk so that nothing can recover the data.
What about just taking it all apart and putting different parts to different uses? Take your old hard drive out and put it in a USB enclosure. I can't speak for most other computer parts but local computer hardware stores sell most bare bones so you could technically transfer some of your computer parts to that new machine to build. You already save enough money building your own custom machine from scratch compared to the well known brands that go proprietory even on that. Reusing and recycling computer parts is what I got into the habit of doing. Every company I have worked with in the last 10 years has done the same.
All manufacture has to be re-defined to be closed-cycle operations in which the producer accepts the return of all products at their end-of-life for full recycle/reuse. All the extra costs of recycling versus using virgin materials are simply absorbed into the cost of doing business. This means less consumption of these products, because they are more expensive. It also means MUCH less consumption of the virgin materials, a welcome relief. Many people will claim that such a modest damping of economic activity has negative consequences, but in fact, more socially-oriented public policies ensure that citizens in developed countries can live comfortably without the MASSIVE plunder/destruction of laissez-faire capitalism. The full recycle/reuse in production is part of a new industrial policy that features full costs in retail prices and closed cycles in all production. The full costs enable consumers to easily choose the types of production that truly minimize full costs. We have to push for it, setting it as part of the terms for public servants to earn our votes. Upon their failing, we vote third party.
Thank you Common Dreams for posting an article on E-Waste. My computer is years old and everyone pressures me every once in a while to buy a new computer but I still refuse. Instead of disposing everything good, why not make reusing and local repair a top priority? Another thing to consider is that computer manufacturers rely on buying all the time so they will put quantity over longer lasting quality driven computers and ditto for the software manufacturers.
P.S.: I still miss the days of Windows 98 and wished I had the room in my condo to enjoy my older PC I worked with before I moved. What is the point of eco-friendly computers if everything is disposable?
We need a GLOBAL GREAT DEPRESSION so that technology is taken less for granted. If that puts major PC manufacturers out of business, well TOUGH LUCK. Maybe we can go local for a change and learn to save more. It is already bad enough that most of our machines are made in China of all places ! Mother Earth doesn't have to be trashed with e-waste.
Hah, I miss Windows 95 myself. Nothing has worked better than that.
Plus, I miss all my old computer games that won't run on newer versions of Windows :-(
I thought Windows 95 OSR2 was the best of Windows 9X. Neither edition of Windows 98 turned out to be stable and got worse on the next machine and don't get me started on Windows ME. For older computer games, there's DOSBOX and I think it works with Windows 3.1 games that won't work on faster machines. For Win9x games, either the software manufacturer provides the patch or workarounds or compatibility mode for that game. SOL otherwise.
I still have my 286 and 486 from years ago. You can find used PCs like those on Ebay possibly for cheaps if DOSBOX doesn't work. I remember the days I used to fool around with computers on DOS and earlier versions of Windows prior to 3.1.
The only one computer game I play is Sid Meyer's Civilization II, which I love. It dates from the Windows 95 era. A friend who is a computer technician got it to work under Windows 98 Second Edition. I kept my first computer primarily to play Civ II on it. After 15 years of service it finally died, and I assumed that Civ II was over.
In the meantime I had bought a factory-refurbished PC loaded with Windows XP. The same friend told me that Windows XP has a marvellous backward-compatibility feature. After you install your old software, you right-click on the .exe file; this causes a set of menus to pop up, and in there you can specify that the software be run in the environment of an older version of Windows -- back to Windows 95. So I did that with Civ II, and it runs! I'm a happy man.
The compatibility feature doesn't always work on every game.
The yellowy patina on some of those units is very desired by collectors. :-)
I'm very interested in the subject. Currently there is the issue of discarded CRT based monitors and TV sets, which contain high amounts of lead in the glass. Anyone know the "correct" way to dispose of such, and what it is that really happens? I think I can guess on the latter part of the question. Theoretically it would involve at the minimum a considerable amount of labor to disassemble the unit and get the glass separated, and it would seem that the one disposing of the CRT would have to actually pay to get it done right.
Sounds like a problem that a government job program can take care of, since it's not profitable, but still needed.
Too bad our current government doesn't think like that.
I agree based on the idea that sometimes private industry doesn't see past the obvious profit mechanism.
I saw this site for CRT recycling,
http://www.crtusedmonitors.com
I checked, I'd love to see the process flowchart. They said that the lead can leech into the soil. From the glass to the soil? I'd like to know to what degree that is true.
I read where they can extract the lead from the glass. Before the switch to LCD screens they could just recycle the glass for new CRTs but that isn't an option anymore.
Interesting what you said on the switch. I'm no expertise on this monitor recycling stuff but I can see how serious it can get. I thought that the purpose of LCDs was to keep it flat, compact, but pack a wallop in display. I'm not sure why they shut off the option for not recycling glass for new CRTs but I'm assuming it was to keep the switch to LCD going and possibly lower the prices. I'll need to find someone who knows monitor manufacturing to get some more info.
I think the explanation is this simple: Once the prices on the LCD displays got down to a certain point, no one wanted a CRT.
I have worked tirelessly with discarded hardware when I got my first job before I moved into networking. Most of the hardware described in this article is built on oil. If Peak Oil were to happen, production of newer and faster machines would slow. I once talked to a hard drive tech about how hard drives are manufactured and she told me that they are generally remanufactured with newer methods of remanufacturing to come. Some hardware cannot be remanufactured and must be broken down and rebuilt from scratch. Hopefully, more methods of remanufacturing will be brought up before tech waste becomes a serious issue. Peak Oil could accelerate it as well.
You can still get spammed by Nigeria, even if you have never scrapped a hard drive with e-mail on it.
I've been fairly protective of my primary e-mail account ... using accounts with Yahoo and others for most things that I feel might spam me because I gave them my address. But I've been getting e-mails from Nigeria for a couple of years.