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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.

Kids who want to play CSI can use a kit that shows how to dust for fingerprints, blowing away excess powder in the process. The play dust, however, contains enough asbestos to trigger cancer later in life, according to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, which tracks toxic ingredients in consumer products.

Watchdog groups call hidden asbestos the crime in this scene.

(Credit: Planet Toys)

The powder was found to contain as much as 7 percent of tremolite, one the most fatal forms of asbestos. One-time exposure has been linked with developing lung disease and mesothelioma years or decades later. The toxicant was found in six of eight samples tested by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization during a five-month examination that also found asbestos in toy clay.

The maker of the CSI kit, which is produced in China, said it performed its own tests and found no asbestos. The package continues to be sold for between $10 and $30 at eToys, Toys R Us, and other merchants.

Tests released by other nonprofit environmental groups Wednesday found lead, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals in more than one-third of 1,200 popular toys, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Some consumer advocacy groups believe that lead appearing in jewelry and children's toys made in China may originate from circuit boards and other parts of discarded electronics.

Such news may lead parents to worry about a world more dangerous than the one in which they grew up, as today's playthings can harm children's health or just addle their attention. Toys of the past, like the Zulu toy gun, may have been more obviously hazardous, but hidden toxic ingredients are harder to measure.

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.

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.

(Credit: Broadband Media)

Remember when gas masks were all the rage? So passe. The true survivalist chic will surely be flashing their new toxic gas detectors at their next bunker soiree.

Fashionable toxic gas detectors are now available in a convenient handheld design, according to Mobile Magazine says, so we can "identify safety and security threats in real time." Not only that, but the new QRAE II model claims to be the first four-gas monitor with a lead-free oxygen sensor--who could ask for more?

We just hope they'll come out with some new colors soon. (Black is so 2006 in survival wear.) Not to mention a built-in radio or MP3 player.