E-Waste : A double-Whammy from the computer's dirty technology

As users of electronics and PCs, most of us are unaware of the hazards we are dealing with Let's not be taken in by the 'clean' packaging in which we get our technology.Even if it comes packed in seemingly anti-septic boxes and shapes,the fact is that computers are comprised of polluting parts and also deplete a whole lot of global resources in is making.
The book From Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things, has a chapter titled 'The Secret Life of your Computer', which offers insight into how various computer components are harmful to the environment.It underlines the fact that the chips in a computer generated waste 4500 times the chips' own weight and used 2800 gallons of water.It goes on to highlight the resources that go into creating the chip; Arizona copper, a thin layer of South African Gold, and the water gets shipped to Malaysia packed in a box of unbleached Douglas-fir from Oregon and black foam from Japan!This is but the beginning of the story.At each stage, we are reminded of how the resources pollute those parts of the planet from where they are removed.So it is a double-whammy.Yes computers make us efficient, help us connect and communicate on an unprecedented scale.But they also pollute the planet in a significant manner.
In the US, monitors and televisions are banned from landfills as monitors and TVs contain heavy metals which leach into the environment, and are harmful to humans and animals.Ravi Agarwal, director of non-profit environmental group,Toxics Link, in New Delhi,India,says that some 40000 tons of used electronic equipment fine their way to India every month, unnoticed.Much of this ends up in illegal electronics dump grounds.