Most people don't connect the use of their home PC to Superfund sites. But on the world market, hard-rock mining to extract gold,  silver, and tin is closely connected to electronics by the sheer volume of materials used.  This type of mining, which involves blasting solid rock, pulverizing it, and leaching it in solvents (such as cyanide or mercury (1) to recover precious metals, also produces toxic compounds that would normally weather out of the rock very slowly. Such pollutants include sulfuric acid, asbestos dust, radioactive gases, arsenic, and mercury. (1) They collect in soil, disperse in air and most dangerously accumulate in the water table. How much hard rock must be processed to obtain the desired elements? "The metal content of the ore rock is often less than 5/100ths of an ounce of gold per ton of rock." (2)

    Recycling electronics saves the earth in two ways: by reducing the demand from mining, and reducing the accumulation of both pollutants and valuable materials in landfills.

    One very real concern in recycling electronics is whether they end up in foreign countries where unregulated practices cause harm. Investigators in China have found whole villages involved in smashing, burning and chemically leaching computers that used to be in American homes. All kinds of poisons and carcinogens are released where the children play. Some estimate that 50% to 80% of electronics collected in America for recycling gets shipped out of the country. (3)

    Computer Barn Vermont delivers your electronics to a Vermont-based recycling hub. Good Point Recycling of Middlebury, and its parent company American Retroworks, has many years' experience with world markets, and a deep commitment to both environmental and human rights practices. For an in-depth discussion of what happens to your computers after we ship them, see www.retroworks.com/. Click on Computer and TV Recycling, then on Good Point Recycling, then on Proper Reuse and Exports - Due Diligence. Two pages at the bottom, CRT Glass Test and PC Gold Test, discuss the problem of  illegal handling of these valuable and dangerous materials.

(1) http://www.womenandenvironment.org/newsreports/issuereports/Mining_Health_Report_final_lo%230.pdf

(2) http://www.unr.edu/sb204/geology/extrtext.html

(3) http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/02/25/computer-waste.htm