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When 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley and his crew went to China to record the black market dismantling of electronic waste, or e-waste, the experience was almost as hazardous for the 60 Minutes team as working with the toxic material is for poor Chinese workers.

Jumped by a gang of men overseeing the e-waste operations who tried to take the CBS team's cameras, Pelley's crew managed to escape and bring back footage of the hazardous activities. Pelley's investigation will be broadcast this Sunday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

The Chinese attackers were trying to protect a lucrative business of mining the e-waste -- junked computers, televisions and other old electronic products -- for valuable components, including gold. "They're afraid of being found out. This is smuggling. This is illegal," says Jim Puckett, founder of the Basel Action Network, a group working to stop the dumping of toxic materials in poor countries that certifies ethical e-waste recyclers in the United States. "A lot of people are turning a blind eye here. And if somebody makes enough noise, they're afraid this is all going to dry up."

E-waste workers in Guiyu, China, where Pelley's team videotaped, put up with the dangerous conditions for the $8 a day the job pays. They use caustic chemicals and burn the plastic parts to get at the valuable components, often releasing toxins that they not only inhale, but release into the air, the ground and the water. Potable water must now be trucked into Guiyu and scientists have discovered that the city has the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. Pregnancies in Guiyu are six times more likely to result in miscarriages, and seven out of 10 children there have too much lead in their blood.

Starting October 1, Samsung will commence with a new recycling program for its consumer electronics products.

Anyone in any U.S. state will be able to take their old, used, or unwanted Samsung-brand electronics bought in the U.S. to a collection site--either a permanent drop-off point or a local recycling event--at no cost to the owner. You can also bring electronics not made by Samsung, but they'll charge you for it.

Looking to unload an old Samsung product? The company will now take it back for free.

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung says it is partnering with recycling programs "that do not incinerate, landfill, or export toxic waste to developing countries." The only things it will not take back are any home appliances.

The program is called Samsung Recycling Direct and was actually announced last week, but it's important enough to write about, even if it's a bit tardy.

More electronics companies are getting on the direct recycling bandwagon, following several retailers, many of whom have begun their own programs though not all of them are free.

Though the key to slowing the rate of electronic waste we produce is to buy products that last longer than two years and are made from recyclable materials, this is a good start. It might even delay our need for a real-life Wall-E.

Admit it: somewhere in a drawer or stashed in your closet, you have an old cell phone or digital camera with no practical purpose.

Second Rotation is a Web site designed to find a home for that used and no-longer-loved electronic gear. On Tuesday, the company announced that it has raised $4.4 million in funding led by Venrock to expand its product catalog and ramp up marketing.

The Web site, which launched last July, acts as a broker between consumers and eBay or an electronics recycler.

Tired of that iPhone? Find a buyer online.

You can then print out a shipping slip and arrange a pick up. Second Rotation then rehabs the goods to be sold on eBay. A small percentage--10 percent--are sent to reputable recyclers, says CEO and founder Rousseau Aurelien. It makes money brokering the transaction.

People can sell their stuff directly on eBay, of course, but Aurelien argues that it's still too troublesome for most consumers. Only one in 30 of eBay's registered users actually sells anything, he said.

"Forty percent of car sales have a trade-in but if you look at consumer electronics, it's not a significant number--less than 1 percent," said Aurelien. "So we have our work cut out for us. There needs to be a little bit of change in consumer behavior, too."

Electronic waste is a growing problem. The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month month launched a cell phone recycling program in an effort to raise consumer awareness.

Second Rotation already takes cell phones, digital image and video cameras, gaming consoles, digital music players, and GPS systems.

In the summer, the company plans to expand its product catalog to laptops, beyond the trade-ins for Macbooks it already offers. Aurelien said the company's ambition is to broker sales of more than just electronics.

Digital TV will bring a new world of entertainment to consumers and generate a big honking pile of electronic waste.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Roughly 80 million analog TVs will get heaved out in 2008 and 2009, according to John Shegerian, CEO of Electronic Recyclers (ER), one of the largest e-waste recyclers in the U.S., and someone is going to have to dispose of those old TVs properly. The glass in the tube consists of about 22 percent lead.

Even without the digital TV mandate (which kicks in on February 17, 2009), the e-recycling business is booming. Roughly 65 million pounds of e-waste was recycled in 2005 in California alone after the state passed a recycling law and the figure shot up to 120 million pounds in 2006. More than 200 million pounds will be recycled in the state this year, he added.

Minnesota and Massachusetts have passed laws mandating e-waste recycling, and more laws are on the way. Approximately 35 other states are now tinkering with laws.

"E-waste bans are going to become mandatory," he said, during a presentation and hallway meeting at the ThinkGreen conference taking place in San Francisco.

ER has seen its revenues double every year for the past four years. Roughly half the revenue comes from recycling fees paid by states or large corporations to the company to dispose of waste. The other half comes from selling the indium, glass, lead, and other materials that come out of the recycling process.

"Everything in your cell phone or TV is reusable," he said.

The company has two facilities in the country, one in California and one in Massachusetts, but it plans to expand elsewhere.

One of the stumbling blocks has been getting people to understand e-waste laws, he acknowledged. Then there is the collection problem. A lot of people just leave this stuff in their garage. ER collects it itself but also has teamed up with Goodwill Industries. Serving as a collector netted the charity $1 million in recycling fees in California, he added.

Tech recycling services traditionally are either free or charge you a fee for trying to keep old gear out of landfills. But as long as you're cleaning out closets to make room for another season of gifts, you could finance some of your holiday shopping by sending tired tech toys to a service that will pay for them.

The new BuyMyTronics, (via EcoGeek) from the same people behind BuyMyBrokeniPod, will accept game consoles from a GameBoy to an Xbox, as well as iPods and iPhones. According to the site's online estimate, a dead Wii in the original box would fetch $62.25, sent via PayPal or check. If you like the deal, just sign up and ship out the goods.

SecondRotation also pays for gaming consoles, PDAs, phones, camcorders, GPS devices, and digital cameras. But its estimate rated the value of the same broken Wii as a gaping zero.

Too bad I can't find a site that wants my TI 99/4-A, circa 1981. I guess that's better fit for a vintage computer sale, Craigslist, FreeCycle, or eBay.

At least someone will give me a kickback for mailing in an old Motorola RAZR V3. CellforCash would pay $13, SimplySellular would fork over $23, and SellYourCell would offer $20. SecondRotation beat them all with its $30 trade-in estimate. BuyMyTronics is working to add trade-in options for cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, and camcorders.

Of course, you can also recycle a wireless phone without getting paid, or pay a small fee to GreenCitizen if you find walking into their San Francisco or Silicon Valley trade-in shop convenient. Trade-in services, including curbside pickup, from HP and Dell have good reputations.

Services such as these either refurbish and resell used gear, donate the old tech to schools or needy nonprofit groups, or send the stuff straight into something like a meat grinder for hardware, later reclaiming valuable metals to sell. SecondRotation resells the items on eBay, as does BuyMyTronics, which also donates castoff parts to artists. The staff of BuyMyTronics also aims to be "green" by reusing packaging materials and walking most of the hundreds of goods it deals with each month over to the post office.

However, many other recycling services make it a practice to ship used electronics overseas, where it's likely to poison the health of people and ecosystems. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition lists recyclers services that recycle responsibly.

Printer companies are under attack as more people become concerned about global warming and toxic pollution.

The solution? "Printer Vendors Need to Greenwash Their Image."

That unfortunate headline was the theme of an e-mail newsletter this morning from Lyra Research, a well-respected firm that tracks the digital imaging industry.

Apparently the writer didn't realize or care that "greenwashing" is a negative term. It describes how companies aiming to appeal to treehuggers are painting a green face, without necessarily cleaning up their act.

Picky consumers detest this trend, which makes it nearly impossible to tell which companies walk the green walk instead of merely spouting a green talk. Earlier this decade, greenwashing wasn't so insidious because most claims of eco-friendliness were made by small enterprises, like, say, your local weaver of organic hemp hacky sacks.

But now that the world's biggest corporations aim to appear green--sincerely or cynically--it's easy to be fooled by multimillion-dollar public relations campaigns.

This year, printer hardware is expected to contribute 1 million tons of solid waste in this country alone, while pulp and paper companies are the fourth-largest toxic polluters of water, according to Lyra.

The Lyra newsletter asked, "What can the industry do to prevent an attack by environmental groups and create a better image for itself?"

To start, the industry could gain some friends by reworking its razor cartridge model of ink replacement. I learned quickly--through reviewing printers for CNET--how much people hate that the cost of ink and toner quickly exceeds the price of the printer itself. Vendors insist that people use their premium-price, branded inks or suffer crummy-looking pages. And disposing of cartridges is a pain, even if you're organized enough to mail them in or bring them to stores, such as Walgreen's, for reuse.

Also, how about better tech support and repair? Fixing gadgets should be no harder than taking a cracked heel to the shoe cobbler. The tech industry overall should make better-quality, longer-lasting hardware. A printer that cranks out one page faster per minute than last season's model is not efficient. A printer that lasts but a year and costs more to fix than replace is not sustainable.

Yes, people at HP and most other printer companies have made sincere efforts to establish responsible recycling programs. They've also made more models Energy Star efficient, experimented with corn-based plastic and modular components, and made it easier to print on two sides of a page to reduce paper waste. You might even argue that personal photo printers are kinder to the planet than traditional lab photofinishing.

Still, what's the secret sauce in all that proprietary ink and toner? Materials safety data sheets that companies are required by law to report do not detail the little-tested toxicity of these chemical cocktails. The information is limited largely because American laws regulating potentially dangerous chemicals are notoriously weak.

It took independent testing by an Australian lab to root out potentially cancerous, asthma-inducing ingredients in laser toner.

I don't want to breathe in that noxious dust at my desk, and I certainly don't want to breathe in the hot air of greenwashing. Let's hope that tech companies boast of small successes in moving toward sustainability without getting ahead of themselves.

The tiny Zonbu is built for eco-friendly, no-frills computing.

(Credit: Zonbu)

You can find a decent computer for a lot less than $1,000 these days. But what if you want to pay even less without splurging on software, and can't stand to deal with that oxymoron called "tech support" when something goes awry?

The pay-as-you-go Zonbu PC is a novel new option. This book-size, two-pound desktop lacks a hard drive, instead storing your data on its servers using 128-bit encryption (hands-on here). Zonbu's 4GB flash memory is loaded with Linux and open-source apps.

Similar to cell phone or cable TV service, you'd pay $99 upfront and between $13 to $20 monthly to use Zonbu with either 25GB, 50GB, or 100GB of remote storage. That would add up to a maximum of some $520 after two years, not counting the keyboard, mouse and monitor you'd buy separately.

By contrast, this green laptop is built to get kids wired around the world.

(Credit: One Laptop Per Child)

The makers of Zonbu say it uses one-tenth the power of most PCs, or one-third of what a lightbulb burns. On Friday the fanless, silent device became what might be the greenest desktop computer yet by meeting the highest, "gold" EPEAT rating from the nonprofit Green Electronics Council. Only two desktops from Dell and one from HP bear that gold rating. Plus, Zonbu is billed as carbon neutral.

Zonbu is advertised as a plug-and-play device that works with many printers, digital cameras, and USB storage gizmos, as well as iPod and Creative Nomad MP3 players. However, there's no support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth devices, scanners or Web cams. In addition to Firefox and Skype, Zonbu comes preinstalled with the OpenOffice word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Desktop publishing, web page design, and an iTunes alternative are among the other apps. Want to add more software? Sorry, look elsewhere.

I see Zonbu as kind of like using the Zipcar car-sharing service instead of owning a vehicle; it may be eco-friendly, but you're still missing out on conveniences. However, Zonbu would probably be just fine as an extra household computer for surfing the Web. It seems like a natural fit for devotees of webware who don't play games, edit films, or rely on other processor-taxing activities. Maybe as Web-based applications become heartier and more secure, more people will turn to modest devices that follow Zonbu.

It's cool to see more alternatives emerge to costly, energy-hogging PCs. For instance, the $100 Linux laptop from the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child is built to serve schoolchildren in the developing world. Intel, which produced the competitive Classmate PC, just merged with that project, apparently burying a bitter rivalry. I wonder if a rental payment model similar to Zonbu's would work for adults left on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Circuitboard cufflinks are safe.

(Credit: Circuitboard cufflinks are safe.)

Castoff computer parts can make for quirky jewelry, if you feel like flashing keyboard button earrings or circuitboard cufflinks.

Unlike these models of creative recycling, some costume jewelry imported from China contains heavy metals from discarded electronics and could make you sick, as the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

No lead in these button earrings.

(Credit: Etsy)

Some novelty necklaces and earrings are laced with lead and antimony that likely came from e-waste thrown away by consumers in the United States and other developed nations, then shipped to China for unsafe recycling. "Best Friends Forever" necklaces from Claire's mall shops and stud earrings from Kmart were recalled here in recent months. Accidentally swallowing such leaden baubles could kill a child.

Keeping lead close to your heart.

(Credit: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)

The story is a strange twist of fate for the materials inside some of the tens of millions of pounds of computers, monitors, cell phones, and countless other gadgets discarded each year. Watchdog groups want U.S. companies to stop shipping e-waste overseas, where poor people in China, India and elsewhere smash and burn the trash to sell gold, copper and other valuable components, but can get sick in the process from the poisonous metals and plastics. On the flip side, some consumer groups fear that the lack of federal laws around toxic tech in this country will lead to more imports of products rejected as unsafe by Asian and European markets.

When recycling your tired gadgets, it can be hard to tell what their final destination may be. This list of recycling programs from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is a good guide.