Talking About Green

Part of embracing green living is being a good recycler. Unfortunately, many of our good green efforts can end up causing harm to other people and places without us even knowing about it. Last night, 60 minutes ran a segment on E-waste – a broad term describing those growing heaps of electronic items (cell phones, TVs, computers, printers, VCRs, etc) that no longer can keep pace with our lifestyle and our discarded by the millions when the latest greatest electronic enters the market. The Consumer Electronics Association says U.S. households discard 300 million pieces of electronic equipment every year. Not only can these electronics end up polluting our water streams and releasing harmful toxins into the atmosphere in the U.S. if not disposed of correctly, tons of electronics are also being shipped overseas, often to Asian countries. The toxic waste sites that are being created as a result of this illegal trading and dumping are horrifying.

You can ensure that your electronics are recycled properly by finding a responsible e-cyclers: http://www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html

To find out more about responsible E-recyclers go to the Basel Action Network site and check out the 60 Minutes segment on “The Electronic Wasteland”