Electronic waste is the fastest growing in the world.
It is also the most valuable per tonne, which explains its strange economics.
A tonne of circuit boards contains m gold than a tonne of from a mine.
recyclers recover those metals safely with expensive equipment.
recyclers recover them by burning plastic and washing boards in acid.
The second method is cheaper, faster and poisons the people doing it.
Export controls were supposed to stop waste reaching those workshops.
are relabelled as second-hand goods, which are legal and often genuinely useful.
Drawing a line between reuse and is theref harder than it sounds.
Producer responsibility schemes work better where a is attached to the device.
A returnable sum changes behaviour in a way that a public campaign does not.
Design still decides most of the outcome.
A battery that cannot be removed guarantees that the whole device becomes waste at once.