THE STORY OF

ELECTRONICS:
Annotated Script
By Annie Leonard

The other day, I couldn’t find my computer charger. My computer is my lifeline to my work, my friends,
my music.

So I looked everywhere, even in that drawer where this lives. I know you have one too, a tangle of old
chargers, the sad remains of electronics past.

How did I end up with so many of these things? It’s not like I’m
always after the latest gadget. My old devices broke or became
so obsolete I couldn’t use them anymore. And not one of these
old chargers fits my computer. Augh. This isn’t just bad luck. It’s
bad design.1 I call it “designed for the dump.”

“Designed for the dump” sounds crazy, right? But when you’re
trying to sell lots of stuff, it makes perfect sense. It’s a key strategy
of the companies that make our electronics.2 In fact it’s a key part of our whole unsustainable materials
economy.

Designed for the dump means making stuff to be thrown away quickly. Today’s electronics are hard to
upgrade, easy to break, and impractical to repair. My DVD player broke and I took it to a shop to get
fixed. The repair guy wanted $50 just to look at it! A new one at Target costs $39.3

In the 1960s, Gordon Moore, the giant brain and semiconductor pioneer, predicted that electronics

1. It may seem crazy, but many of these products are actually designed where consumers access data on the Internet – or “the cloud” –
to break after a certain amount of time. This concept is known as using quite simple hardware and software, but again, the large
“planned obsolescence” or “designed for the dump”. Planned computer companies often see this model as a threat to their
obsolescence is designing and producing products with limited commodity sales. For more information, see http://www.geek.
lifespans – so that they stop functioning or become undesirable com/articles/chips/fully-modular-computers-20040312/ and http://
within a specific time period. And it isn’t just electronics, products www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/09/01/232086/Thin-client-
may be designed for obsolescence either through function, like a computing-smartens-up.htm
paper coffee cup or a machine with breakable parts, or through
3. And its not just DVD players—it’s this way with all sorts of electronic
“desirability,” like a piece of clothing made for this year’s fashion and
gadgets. Think about that printer cartridge replacement that costs
then replaced by something totally different next year.
more than a new printer, the iPod battery that you can’t replace,
2. For many years, designers and consumers have advocated for the cell phone charger that snaps. The list of electronics that are
electronic products that are truly modular, so that consumers can prohibitively expensive to upgrade or just plain impossible to repair
simply swap one “obsolete” part for a newer part without having goes on and on.
to discard an entire product. While there has been some progress 4. Moore’s Law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. In
in this regard, such as hard drives and disk drives that are easier to 1965, he stated that the number of transistors that can be placed
replace, electronics companies have been wary of the “modular on a computer chip will double every year. This translates into
model” since they prefer to sell new, whole units. Likewise, many increases in processor speed, more memory, and other performance
have advocated for a “thin client” model of information delivery,

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THE STORY OF ELECTRONICS
designers could double processor speed every
18 months. So far he’s been right. This is called
Moore’s Law.4 But somehow the bosses of these
genius designers got it all twisted up. They seem
to think Moore’s Law means every 18 months we
have to throw out our old electronics and buy
more.

Problem is, the 18 months that we use these things are just a blip in their entire lifecycle. And that’s where
these dump designers aren’t just causing a pain in our wallets. They’re creating a global toxic emergency!

See, electronics start where most stuff starts, in mines5 and factories. Many of our gadgets are made from
more than 1,000 different materials, shipped from around the world to assembly plants.6

There, workers turn them into products, using loads of toxic chemicals, like PVC, mercury, solvents and
flame retardants.7

Today this usually happens in far off places that are hard to monitor.8 But it used to happen near my
home, in Silicon Valley, which thanks to the electronics industry is one of the most poisoned communities
in the U.S.9

IBM’s own data revealed that its workers making computer chips had 40% more miscarriages and were
significantly more likely to die from blood, brain and kidney cancer.10 The same thing is starting to

improvements. In 1975, Moore revised it to doubling every 2 years. that can cause well documented adverse health effects, particularly
Over time, the concept was shortened from 2 years to 18 months by to children and developing fetuses.” http://www.epa.gov/oig/
others at Intel. This trend has continued for over 40 years. To learn reports/2004/20040901-2004-P-00028.pdf
more check out: ftp://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/
Video-transcripts/Excepts_A_Conversation_with_Gordon_Moore.pdf These toxicants are released during the production, use, and
disposal of electronic products, with the greatest impact at
5. Most of our electronics contain precious metals and minerals,
end-of-life, particularly when they are exported to developing
some of which are referred to as “conflict minerals”. A particularly
nations. Harmful chemicals released from incinerators and
egregious example is coltan—or columbite-tantalite—a metallic ore
leached from landfills can contaminate air and groundwater. The
that gets refined into tantalum, as well as tin, tungsten, and gold,
burning of plastics at the waste stage releases dioxins and furans,
all used in consumer electronics such as cell phones, DVD players,
known developmental and reproductive toxins that persist in the
computers, and games consoles. The extraction and export of these
environment and concentrate up the food-chain. Some of the
four minerals from Africa have helped fuel environmental and social
worst end-of-life toxic impacts occur when e-waste is exported to
disruption, brutal violence and war in the Congo. See: http://www.
developing nations, where crude, unsafe “processing” methods
nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27kristof.html?_r=2 and http://
result in significant exposures. The plastics are burned in
www.youtube.com/enoughproject#p/a/u/0/5Ycih_jMObQ
uncontrolled outdoor waste piles, emitting dioxin into residential
6. Over 1,000 materials, including solvents, brominated flame areas; circuit boards are “cooked” to melt the lead solder, emitting
retardants, PVC, heavy metals, plastics and gases, are used to make toxic lead fumes; and acids are used to extract precious metals.
electronic products and their components—semiconductor chips, http://www.ban.org/E-Waste/technotrashfinalcomp.pdf
circuit boards, and disk drives. A clunky CRT monitor can contain
between four and eight pounds of lead alone (see Footnote 15). Big During the use phase, electronics can off-gas brominated flame
screen CRT TVs contain even more than that. Flat panel TVs and retardants (BFRs), a group of toxic chemicals added to plastic
monitors contain less lead, but use lamps with mercury, which is very casings. To read specifically on BFRs, see Footnote 14.
toxic in very small quantities. An EPA commissioned study noted
that “approximately 70 percent of the heavy metals in municipal The production phase of electronics is the most chemically
solid waste landfills are estimated to come from electronics discards. intensive, particularly in the manufacture of semiconductors and
Heavy metals such as lead and mercury are highly toxic substances other components, which use very toxic solvents such as methylene

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THE STORY OF ELECTRONICS
happen all around the world. 11 Turns out the high tech industry isn’t as clean as its image.

So, after its toxic trip around the globe, the gadget lands in my hands. I love it for a year or so and then
it starts drifting further from its place of honor on my desk or in my pocket. Maybe it spends a little time
in my garage before being tossed out.12

And that brings us to disposal, which we think of as the end of its life. But really it’s just moved on to
become part of the mountains of e-waste we make every year.13

Remember how these devices were packed with toxic chemicals? Well there’s a simple rule of production:
toxics in, toxics out. Computers, cell phones, TVs, all this stuff, is just waiting to release all their toxics
when we throw them away. Some of them are slowly releasing this stuff even while we’re using them.14
You know those fat, old TVs that people are chucking for high-def flat screens? They each have about 5
pounds of lead in them.15 Lead! As in lead poisoning!16

So almost all this e-waste either goes from my garage to a landfill or it gets shipped overseas to the
garage workshop of some guy in Guiyu, China whose job it is to recycle it.17

I’ve visited a bunch of these so-called recycling operations. Workers, without protective gear, sit on the
ground, smashing open electronics to recover the valuable metals inside and chucking or burning the
parts no one will pay them for. So while I’m on to my next gadget, my last gadget is off poisoning families

chloride, toluene, glycol ethers, xylene and trichloroethylene (TCE), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/business/global/07suicide.html

which have been linked to elevated rates of cancers, including blood http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC101013-0000091/New-
cancers, brain cancers, reproductive problems and birth defects allegations-against-Foxconn
among electronics workers and their offspring. http://www.ehjournal.
9. When the semiconductor industry emerged in the 1970’s in Silicon
net/content/5/1/30
Valley, it was touted as a new, clean industry. But over time, it came
7. See Footnote 6 and http://www.electronicstakeback.com/problem/ to light that these companies were using very toxic chemicals, like
toxics_problem.htm the solvent TCE, to produce computer chips. These chemicals
were sometimes dumped, or leaked out of underground storage
8. Most electronics are manufactured in Asia, not by the companies
tanks, into the groundwater. The polluted water led to exposure
whose brand names you know and go on the products, but by
of the surrounding communities and resulted in miscarriages and
many contract manufacturing firms, sometimes called Electronics
birth defects. Now, most of these companies have moved their
Manufacturing Services. Some of the largest of these include
production offshore to developing nations, leaving behind polluted
Foxconn, Flextronics, Quanta, Sanmina-SCI, Solectron, Celestica,
“Superfund” sites that will cost millions to clean up. Silicon Valley is
and Jabil Circuit. There are also thousands of component
home to 29 toxic EPA “Superfund” sites – the highest concentration
manufacturers that make the individual components that get
in the country. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) has a map
assembled into the final products. It’s practically impossible for any
of the sites at http://www.svtc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_
brand name company to provide any significant oversight of the
silicon_valley_toxic_tour.
workplace or environmental conditions in this complex supply chain.
Many companies in the electronics industry support a voluntary code 10. For decades IBM kept its own Corporate Mortality File (CMF), a
of conduct for workplace and environmental conditions, created concealed database tracking cause of death of all its employees.
by a group called the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition, or IBM workers were unaware of the CMF or what was in it until a
EICC. But working conditions at contract giant Foxconn’s plant in lawsuit by IBM workers led to its release in 2000. Dr. Richard Clapp,
Shenzen, China, are so bad that 13 employees committed suicide from the Boston University School of Public Health, analyzed the
in 2010 alone; mostly by jumping from the windows of the plant or data, and concluded that IBM workers involved in manufacturing
dormitories. The company’s response was to install “anti-suicide (where they were exposed to solvents and other chemicals) have
nets” around the plant. an increased risk of dying of cancer, especially cancers of the brain,
blood, and kidneys.
http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Only+Escape+From+Hellish+Ap
ple+iPhone+Factory+Was+Suicide/article18428.htm Over 300 IBM workers in the US, who were exposed to toxic
http://www.law.stanford.edu/publications/stanford_lawyer/issues/79/ chemicals at work, sued IBM and its chemical suppliers alleging their
pdfs/sl79_kinks.pdf chemical exposures caused cancers, birth defects in offspring, and
http://ehstoday.com/mag/ehs_imp_70124/ other chronic diseases. All but two of these claims were settled prior

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in Guiyu or India or Nigeria.

Each year we make 25 million tonnes of e-waste which gets dumped, burned or recycled.18 And that
recycling is anything but green. So are the geniuses
who design these electronics actually… evil geniuses?
I don’t think so, because the problems they’re creating
are well hidden even from them.

You see, the companies they work for keep these

human and environmental costs out of sight and off
their accounting books. It’s all about externalizing
the true costs of production.19 Instead of companies
paying to make their facilities safe the workers pay with
their health. Instead of them paying to redesign using
less toxics villagers pay by losing their clean drinking
water. Externalizing costs allows companies to keep
designing for the dump – they get the profits and
everyone else pays.

When we go along with it, it’s like we’re looking at this toxic mess and saying to companies “you made
it, but we’ll deal with it.” I’ve got a better idea. How about “you made it, you deal with it”? Doesn’t that
make more sense?

Imagine that instead of all this toxic e-waste piling up in our garages and the streets of Guiyu, we sent
it to the garages of the CEOs who made it. You can bet that they’d be on the phone to their designers
demanding they stop designing for the dump.

to trial under confidentiality orders that were insisted upon by IBM colleagues. We hear the same from Indonesian and Korean women.
and the chemical companies. Similar stories come from the Philippines. Men who work in
factories assembling automotive electronics and DVD players report
Two claims went to trial by IBM workers sick with cancer. Despite co-workers who have died of cancer - lung cancer and brain tumors.
the fact that the trial was about fraudulent concealment claims, the Two young Indonesian women who work in electronics factories
judge did not allow the jury to hear any mention of IBM‘s Corporate ask me if chemicals related to their work or perhaps to the “instant
Mortality File, let alone Dr. Clapp’s analysis of its contents. The food” they all eat may have caused their co-workers’ breast cancers.
trial ended with no finding at all on the cause of the two workers’ Occupational health advocates working on behalf of Samsung
cancers. To read Dr. Clapp’s report see: “Mortality among US workers in Korea have now documented 96 cases of cancer --
employees of a large computer manufacturing company: 1969– about a third of these fatal -- among employees of the company’s
2001”, Dr. Richard Clapp, 19 Oct 2006, http://www.ehjournal.net/ semiconductor plants. Many of these are young people.
content/5/1/30
To read the full article see http://scienceblogs.com/
Also see: http://www.nyupress.org/product_info. thepumphandle/2010/08/apha_ohs_section_awards_honor.php
php?products_id=3002 and http://www.salon.com/technology/
12. Consumers typically use cell phones for an average of 18 months
feature/2001/07/30/almaden1
before disposing of them, a much shorter period than the lifecycle of
11. Attending a recent meeting on occupational health and safety issues older phones. See http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1119.
in Asia, science writer Elizabeth Grossman described the following html
scene:
And the situation isn’t much different with computers. According
Women from China who have worked at a plant assembling cell to the EPA, laptops are used for only 2 to 3 years by the initial
phones -- producing as many as 300 to 400 an hour -- report that purchasers. See page 22 of http://www.epa.gov/wastes/conserve/
miscarriages and menstrual problems are common among their materials/ecycling/docs/app-2.pdf

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Making companies deal with their e-waste is called Extended Producer Responsibility or Product
Takeback.20 If all these old gadgets were their problem, it would be cheaper for them to just design
longer lasting, less toxic, and more recyclable products in the first place. They could even make them
modular, so that when one part broke, they could just send us a new piece, instead of taking back the
whole broken mess.21

Already takeback laws are popping up all over Europe and Asia.22 In the U.S. many cities and states are
passing similar laws – these need to be protected and strengthened.23

It’s time to get these brainiacs working on our side. With takeback laws and citizen action to demand
greener products, we are starting a race to the top, where designers compete to make long-lasting,
toxic-free products. So, let’s have a green Moore’s law. How about: the use of toxic chemicals will be cut
in half every 18 months? The number of workers poisoned will decline at an even faster rate?

We need to give these designers a challenge they can rise to and do what they do best – innovate.
Already, some of them are realizing they’re too smart to be dump designers and are figuring out how to
make computers without PVC or toxic flame retardants.24 Good job guys.

But we can do even more.

When we take our e-waste to recyclers, we can make sure they don’t export it to developing countries.25
And when we do need to buy new gadgets, we can choose greener products.26

But the truth is: we are never going to just shop our way out of this problem because the choices available
to us at the store are limited by choices of designers and policymakers outside of the store. That’s why we

13. In the US alone, we chuck over 400 million electronic gadgets in a studies have found BFRs in samples of household dust and indoor
single year and that number is continuing to grow. See http://www. air, suggesting that some of the BFRs found in our bodies comes
electronicstakeback.com/problem/problem_index2.htm from inhaling it in dust. Because BFRs are used in multiple products,
such as electronics, furniture and textiles, some studies have not
14. Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are in a considerable percentage
attributed each product’s contribution to the totals found.
of electronics. A 2005 report released by Health Care Without Harm
called Brominated Flame Retardants: Rising Levels of Concern, has
• One dust study in Indonesia found that BFR levels were higher in
this to say: living rooms with computers than in living rooms without
computers: http://www.terrapub.co.jp/onlineproceedings/ec/02/
Whereas flame resistant products save lives and prevent property pdf/ERA15.pdf
damage, there are increasing concerns about the environmental and
• Another study was able to associate the high levels of one type
health effects of flame retardants such as BFRs. Overall, the available of BFR (deca-BDE) in dust collected in certain homes with the
literature on BFR toxicology is incomplete. Based on the available same BFR found in televisions in those homes: http://pubs.acs.org
data, however, we know that BFRs are associated with several health /doi/abs/10.1021/es702964a
effects in animal studies, including neurobehavioral toxicity, thyroid
• And in the lab, electronics have been determined to emit flame
hormone disruption, and possibly cancer. Additionally, there are data retardants, with emissions increasing as much as 500 times as the
gaps but some evidence that BFRs can cause developmental effects, temperature increased: http://bit.ly/cZHSlG
endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity, reproductive, and long-term
effects, including second-generation effects. http://www.noharm. To read more about BFRs in dust see the following papers by EWG
org/lib/downloads/bfrs/BFRs_Rising_Concern.pdf and SVTC: http://www.ewg.org/reports/inthedust and http://www.
svtc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_bfrs_in_electronics
We are exposed to BFRs in many ways. We ingest it via meat and
15. Old style TVs and computers contain a large glass Cathode Ray
dairy products, where it’s been absorbed into the food chain and
Tube (CRT). The glass contains lead, both to shield against radiation
is found widely in the environment and animal tissues. Also, many

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need to join with others to demand stronger laws on toxic chemicals and on banning e-waste exports.27

There are billions of people out there who want

access to the incredible web of information and
entertainment electronics offer. But it’s the access they
want, not all that toxic garbage. So let’s get our brains
working on sending that old design for the dump
mentality to the dump where it belongs and instead
building an electronics industry and a global society
that’s designed to last.

and to improve the optical quality of the picture, and it does a lot of paid for by those industries. Externalized costs are most often borne
other nasty things too (see Footnote 16). Also, it’s not just old TVs by workers, community members and the environment, rather than
and computers, lead is present in solder used in many electronic by industries and corporations.
products. To learn more check out: http://computer.howstuffworks.
20. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR, also called “Producer
com/question678.htm
Takeback”) is a product and waste management system in
16. Lead exposure can cause many health effects, particularly damage which manufacturers – not the consumer or government – take
to the nervous system. Kids are especially vulnerable to lead responsibility for the collection and environmentally safe
exposures, which can cause brain damage and death at high levels. management of their product when it is no longer useful or is
Studies link lead exposure in children to lower IQs, higher incidents discarded. When manufacturers take responsibility for the recycling
of ADHD, hearing and balance problems. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ of their own products they no longer pass the cost of disposal on
csem/lead/pbphysiologic_effects2.html to the government and taxpayer, but build it into the price of the
product (internalizing the cost). This gives them a financial incentive
17. E-waste is growing two to three times faster than other types of
to use environmentally safer materials in the production process;
municipal waste. While most e-waste in the US still goes into the
design the product to be more recyclable; create safer recycling
trash, the amount going to recyclers is increasing. However, 50 to
systems; and to keep waste costs down.
80 per cent of the e-waste that is collected by recyclers is shipped
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/legislation/about_epr.htm
overseas to developing countries in Asia and Africa where our
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/legislation/about_epr.htm
outdated electronics are creating a global toxic emergency. Once
http://www.miller-mccune.com/business-economics/the-smoldering-
exported, e-waste is typically smashed and burned in backyard
trash-revolt-7306
operations with little to no health and safety precautions. The
burning and dismantling of toxic electronic products under these 21. There are two ways in which modularity would be really helpful
conditions has led to widespread air and water pollution from – for repairs and for upgrades. There has been some headway
toxic metals, dioxins, and other serious health hazards. Scientists made in this arena, but we still have a long way to go. Electronics
have documented high levels of these pollutants in the local manufacturer ASUS developed a prototype for a modular computer
environments, and they have also found them in test samples from a few years ago, that was like a shelf onto which you stack modules
children and other residents of these communities. For example, (hard drive, battery, card reader, etc) the size of CDs. But the parts
health researchers showed that children living in Guiyu had – motherboards, CPU’s, energy supplies - that would need to be
significantly higher blood lead levels than those living in another upgraded to keep up with technology – like new software, faster
community that was not polluted from e-waste. processors, energy savings – were not designed to be simple to
http://www.ban.org/E-Waste/technotrashfinalcomp.pdf replace for average computer user (making it a computer-geek-only
http://www.ban.org/Library/TheDigitalDump.pdf option).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1913570
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/glep.2004.4.4.76 Currently, the release of a new operating system is what prompts
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081044.pdf many PC users to purchase their next computer, since the existing
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/geopedia/E-Waste design of these electronics makes it easier to replace an entire
http://www.svtc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=citizensatrisk computer rather than upgrading it. Adopting modular design
elements that make it easy to upgrade a computer in order to
18. 25 million metric tonnes per year or, in US measurement, roughly 27
keep up with advancing technology would exponentially prolong
tons. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/
its lifespan and keep these electronics out of the dump and on our
planet-2/report/2010/2/toxic-transformers-briefing.pdf
desks.
19. Externalized costs, also known as “hidden costs,” are any kind
22. Europe has led the way with the passage of the Waste Electrical
of loss or damage such as illness, environmental degradation,
and Electronic Directive in 2003, which established the first major
or economic disruption caused by industries engaged in natural
takeback requirements throughout Europe. Other countries have
resource extraction, production, distribution, and disposal, but not

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followed suit, including Japan and China. http://ec.europa.eu/ most other products in the US. Under our current laws, chemical
environment/waste/weee/index_en.htm companies can introduce and sell chemicals in the marketplace, and
it’s up to the EPA to “prove” when the chemicals are unsafe and
23. Twenty-three states have already passed e-waste legislation and
shouldn’t be sold. This puts all the burden of testing and research on
New York City passed an e-waste law but it was recently pre-empted
the government, instead of the companies selling the chemicals. It
by a statewide law in New York. To see an updated list of states
also means that it’s hard for manufacturers to find out the hazardous
with e-waste legislation, check out: http://www.electronicstakeback.
traits of chemicals they use in products.
com/legislation/state_legislation.htm and http://www.
electronicstakeback.com/index.htm
We need to adopt a more sensible approach to toxic chemical
24. Some leading companies have been working with their suppliers to policy, where companies have to prove their chemicals are safe
find safer alternatives to bromine and chlorine. High volume uses before they put them into products that go into our homes and
of bromine and chlorine in flame retardants and plastic resins like schools. Some members of Congress are trying to change that by
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gained worldwide attention when scientific reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – our primary
studies documented their link to the formation of dioxin, one of the federal law on toxics.
most toxic chemicals around. Dioxins and other harmful chemicals
are released into the environment during the burning and smelting See http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/04/15/15greenwire-sen-
of electronic waste. Even the most sophisticated incineration
lautenberg-introduces-chemicals-reform-bil-25266.html and http://
facilities generate low levels of dioxin, but the most significant dioxin
healthreport.saferchemicals.org/.
contribution occurs in developing countries whose facilities are not
designed to handle toxic materials.
Other signs of hope include a new bill to outlaw the export of
hazardous e-waste that has been introduced in the US Congress,
Apple has phased out the use of brominated and chlorinated flame
H.R. 6252, The Responsible Electronics Recycling Act. For more
retardants, in addition to PVC, mercury, arsenic, and lead. All new
information, see http://www.electronicstakeback.com/legislation/
models of Nokia mobile phones are free of PVC, brominated and
summary_HR6252.htm
chlorinated compounds and antimony trioxide. New Sony Ericsson
products are 99.9% free from all halogenated flame retardants. For
And at the state level, California is establishing Green Chemicals
more resources, see Footnote 26.
program, http://coeh.berkeley.edu/greenchemistry/
25. To ensure that your e-waste is recycled responsibly and not
exported overseas, make sure that your recycler is a certified
E-Steward. E-Stewards are recyclers who voluntarily adhere to the
highest standards in the recycling industry: not to export e-waste to
developing nations, not to send it to prison recycling, not to landfill/
incinerate it. This program was developed by the non-profit Basel
Action Network (BAN) as a voluntary pledge program – but it has
recently been expanded into a rigorous certification program, with
independent, accredited auditors. To find an E-Steward in your area
go to: http://e-stewards.org/.
26. Two good sources to use are the Greenpeace Guide to Greener
Electronics, and the ETBC Recycling report card, which grades
companies on their efforts to take back and recycle their old
products.
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/reportcard.htm
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/
electronics/Guide-to-Greener-Electronics/
27. On the road to cleaner, greener electronics legislation Europe
has taken an important step with the passage of the REACH
(Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals)
law. REACH puts the burden on the chemical producers and users to
provide and share data about chemical hazards.
http://www.chemsec.org/get-informed/eu-chemicals/reach

There was additional progress made with the passage of the

Restriction on Hazardous Substances (ROHS) in Europe, which limits
the use of six substances in electronic products sold into the EU. But
the follow up legislation to expand the list of restricted substances
was less successful due to industry opposition. http://www.chemsec.
org/images/stories/publications/ChemSec_publications/100602_
RoHS_vote_Press_Release.pdf

But the US is lagging behind, as there is very inadequate oversight,

required testing, or disclosure of toxic chemicals in electronics or

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