It’s hard to imagine a world without computers and the deluge of other hi-tech devices that have infiltrated our daily lives.

We now live in a wired world – and everybody’s doing it. Technology captivates us, and a case could be made that Future Shop and Best Buy flyers are more widely read than newspapers.

How thin can flat-screen TVs get? How much faster and more powerful can computer processors become?
We mainly want to know if the latest hi-tech gadgets are in our price range, or available through some minimal payment scheme.
As bad of a ride that consumers can be taken for if they choose to go the in-store credit route, that’s not as bad as how quickly hi-tech devices become obsolete, or how the environment stands to lose in the equation.

There seems to be a disconnect with the ever-changing world of technology and the subsequent rise and environmental scourge of e-waste.

Elizabeth Grossman’s book High Tech Trash explores the toll exacted by technology on the environment. Grossman reveals chemicals that are inherent in electronic devices, a lethal cocktail of mercury, lead, arsenic and cadmium, which pose a risk to human health.
Links have been made with these chemicals and cancer, which should make us think twice about this “out of sight, out of mind” mentality prevalent among the consuming and disposing public.

The Wall Street Journal has called hi-tech trash the world’s fastest and potentially most dangerous waste problem.

The scary implications of the constant replacement and introduction of hi tech gadgets, should cause us to consider the role we play as consumers. The scale of the problem, as evidenced by the sheer numbers of high-tech junk, is staggering.
A report on the Mother Earth News website indicates that in the United States:

• 1 million cellular phones are tossed out each week;
• 50 million computers are replaced each year; and
• 2 billion batteries are used each year.

With ever-changing technology, the accumulation of this junk and need for safe disposal and/or recycling demands our attention.
Those concerned about the deluge of e-waste recommend prolonging the life of old devices, through resale and reuse methods, although that really only delay the inevitable.
What needs to happen is for hard-hitting legislation to be enacted. In the Netherlands, old computers can be turned in to retailers when a new one is bought through a government-imposed initiative.
However, cracks in take-back and recycling initiatives are well documented.
It’s been reported that shiploads of North American e-waste go overseas, so that an old home computer in Elmira, with all its toxins, could be smashed apart by a barefoot-child in India.
Incredibly, the Basel Action Network estimates that 50-80 per cent of the millions of pounds of e-waste generated in the US each year is sent abroad for “recycling.” Communities that take the toxic e-waste often end up with contaminated water supplies and horrible health problems through efforts to salvage re-salable materials.

Regardless of the glaring lack of environmental concern shown by leaders in hi-tech industry, consumers should be aware of the effects that their shopping decisions may have for fellow global villagers, or the implications for our own environment.
Like other trash, garbage of the hi-tech variety has the potential to pollute our land and water, and ultimately take a toll on human health. It then becomes irrational to think we can take an out of sight, out of mind approach, when, no matter how much we’d rather not admit it, so much is stake.

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