Blog Juice for Educational Technology

The Basel Action Network has released a report that "exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers." Their site includes links to photos, a list of asset tags identifying where the computers come from, and samples of data left on hard drives. You can also donate to their work and receive DVDs of their films on this issue.

Be prepared. This is horrific. What is being done in developed countries (including the US) in the name of getting used computers to the developing world is shown to be a source of a “cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of developing countries.”

How many computers does your school "recycle"? Do you really know where they will end up? What about the one billion laptops that are planned to be produced in the next five years from OLPC?