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电脑已成为我们工作和日常生活不可缺少的重要组成部分。社会经济发展一日千里，电脑更新换代之高速也是前所未有的。
然而在这场科技大潮中，发展中国家成为了西方发达国家快速发展的牺牲品——为了绕开高成本的电子产品回收方式，西方国家干脆打着“技术支援”的幌子，甚至置国际惯例于不顾，明目张胆地往发展中国家出口废弃的电子产品。这就是本期新闻的话题：来势汹汹的“电子垃圾”。
Thousands of 1)discarded computers from Western Europe and the US arrive in the ports of West Africa every day, ending up in massive 2)toxic dumps where children burn and pull them apart to extract metals for cash.
The dumping of the developed world’s electronic trash, or e-waste, is in direct 3)contravention of international legislation and is causing serious health pro-blems for inhabitants of the 4)shanty towns that have sprung up amid the smouldering dumps in 5)Lagos and 6)Accra.
Campaigners believe 7)unscrupulous scrap merchants are illegally dumping millions of tonnes of dangerous waste on the developing world 8)under the guise of exporting it for use in schools and hospitals. They are calling for better policing of the ban on exports of e-waste, which can release lead, 9)mercury and other dangerous chemicals.
“10)Ghana is increasingly becoming a 11)dumping ground for waste from Europe and the US,” according to Mike Anane, director of the League of Environmental Journalists in Ghana. “The people that 12)break open these monitors tell me that they suffer from nausea, headaches and 13)respiratory problems.”
More than half a million computers arrive in Lagos every month but only about one in four works. The rest are sold as scrap, smashed up and burned.
Millions of tons of e-waste disappears from the developed world every year and continues to reappear in developing countries, despite international bans.
14)Lucrative
The illegal trade in e-waste is highly lucrative. It is possible to extract more gold out of a tonne of electronic circuitry than from a tonne of gold-bearing rock. But illegal dumping is putting risk at charities and other organisations that donate second-hand equipment to the developing world.
Since the introduction of the Basle Ban outlawing the export of 15)hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries in 1992, computers have become an everyday item. Consumers and businesses are replacing their kit at an ever increasing rate,
creating a new waste mountain.
Six years ago the EU produced the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
16)directive, which introduced new curbs and restrictions on the movement of e-waste. The directive heavily regulates the movement of e-waste for recycling and bans its export for disposal. It also introduced a scheme under which the cost of properly disposing of electronic equipment put on the market after August 2005 must be picked up by the producers of the waste-manufacturers, retailers and importers.
But DanWatch, a partner organisation of Consumers International, has evidence that computer equipment from British companies and even local authorities is being dumped in west Africa.
“We filmed children as young as six searching for metal scraps in the earth, which was littered with the toxic waste from thousands of shattered
17)cathode ray tubes,” said Benjamin Holst, co-founder of DanWatch. “A whole community is virtually living and working in this highly toxic environment, which is growing every day.”
Unscrupulous
Without this cash there is little incentive for developing nations to start investing in proper recycling facilities. As a result the e-waste problem is likely to grow, not because of unscrupulous European exporters but because of the increasing number of computers being sold in the developing world.
When you look at the whole product lifetime of a computer, 75% of the environmental damage is done before the computer is switched on for the first time. It is the production, the mining, the factories producing the kit and the use of toxic materials—that is where the environmental damage is done. So if we do not make the producer responsible for dealing with these environmental issues we are never going to get a redesign of compu-ters; we are never going to get computers that are produced in a more environmentally friendly way.
It is a call taken up by Martin Hojsík, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace International. “We want the producers to be responsible for the take-back of their kit,” he said.
The hope is that the sheer expense of making producers pay for the disposal of their computer equipment wherever it is sold or used across the world, will spur the industry towards making “greener” machines.
To bring a quick end to the spectacle of children 18)scrabbling around in toxic waste dumps in Africa, Europe’s regulators and more importantly its consumers and businesses need to take responsibility for disposing of their computer equipment.
每天，来自西欧和美国的成千上万的废弃电脑汇集到西非国家的港口，堆积成“毒山”，孩子们把这些电脑烧毁拆分，拿其中的金属部分去换钱。
发达国家大肆倾倒电子垃圾直接违反了有关国际条例，也对当地居民的健康状况构成严重威胁，在尼日利亚首都拉各斯和加纳首都阿克拉，简陋的小屋如雨后春笋般从如山的电子垃圾堆中涌现。
有关抗议者认为，不法废品商人打着出口供学校及医院使用的电脑之旗号，堂而皇之地把成百万吨有毒垃圾倾泄到发展中国家来。这些电子垃圾会释放铅、水银及其他危险化学物质，有关人士呼吁加大对禁止出口电子垃圾的监管力度。
“加纳已日渐成为欧洲和美国的电子废物倾销场，”加纳环境新闻记者联盟负责人迈克尔•安纳内如是说，“拆解电脑显示器的人告诉我说，他们出现恶心、头痛和呼吸系统疾病等症状。”
每个月进入拉各斯的电脑超过五十万部，但仅有四分之一左右依然能使用，其余的都被当废品卖掉，砸碎和焚毁。
尽管国际禁令已经出台，但每年仍有几百万吨电子垃圾从发达国家消失，转而又在发展中国家重新出现。
获利丰厚
电子垃圾非法贸易的回报是相当诱人的，一吨电路所含的金也许会比一吨含金石中的还要多。然而，非法倾泄也因此连累了真正的慈善机构，以及那些向发展中国家捐赠二手设备的组织。
旨在禁止将有害污染物从发达国家向不发达国家转移的《巴塞尔公约》于1992年正式生效，现在计算机已被列入日常用品的一项。消费者及企业正以前所未有的速度进行着计算机的更新换代，计算机成了新的巨大污染源。
六年前，欧盟出台了《废弃电动电子设备指令》（缩写WEEE），对电子垃圾的处理作出了新的禁令和限制。新的条款强调要对电子垃圾进行回收，禁止以出口的方式进行废弃处理。新的方案还规定，2005年8月之后投放市场的电子设备产品，其处置费用遵循“谁产生，谁负责”的原则，也就是要由生产厂家、零售商或进口商负责。
然而，国际消费者协会的合作组织DanWatch却发现，英国公司，甚至是英国当地政府部门依然把计算机设备往西非国家倾销转移。
“我们拍到这里年仅六岁的孩子在泥地上挖金属碎片，这些碎片散得一地都是，还有无数零散的阴极射线管释放的有害废物，”DanWatch的创始人之一本杰
明•豪斯特说道，“毫不夸张地说，这里的所有人都生活和工作在一个高度有害的环境里，而这种现状还在每天不断恶化。”
肆无忌惮
如果没有金钱的鼓励，发展中国家实在缺乏投资电子废弃物回收设备的动力。因此，电子垃圾问题有可能将进一步恶化，这不是因为欧洲国家肆无忌惮地倾泄，而是因为计算机在发展中国家的销售数量与日俱增。
当你纵观一台计算机的整体寿命时，就会发现它对环境造成的破坏，有75%是在你第一次接通电源开始使用它之前就已经造成了。生产过程、采矿、制造计算机的工厂以及对有毒材料的使用，这些都对环境造成了破坏。因此，如果我们不让生产厂商负起环保的责任，我们就永远都无法对计算机进行改进，我们也永远无法以一种更环保的方式生产计算机。
国际绿色和平组织提倡处理有害物体的马丁•霍塞克呼吁：“我们希望厂家负起回收自己产品的责任。”
有识之士希望给厂家施加压力，他们的产品无论在世界上哪里出售或使用，厂家都要为自己产品的回收处置负责，此举是希望能推动电子产品行业朝着更加绿色环保的方向发展。
要想尽早结束非洲孩子到处乱翻有毒废弃垃圾这一幕，欧洲的相关规范制定者、更重要的是欧洲消费者及公司企业必须为自己废弃计算机设备的处置问题负责。
然而在这场科技大潮中，发展中国家成为了西方发达国家快速发展的牺牲品——为了绕开高成本的电子产品回收方式，西方国家干脆打着“技术支援”的幌子，甚至置国际惯例于不顾，明目张胆地往发展中国家出口废弃的电子产品。这就是本期新闻的话题：来势汹汹的“电子垃圾”。
Thousands of 1)discarded computers from Western Europe and the US arrive in the ports of West Africa every day, ending up in massive 2)toxic dumps where children burn and pull them apart to extract metals for cash.
The dumping of the developed world’s electronic trash, or e-waste, is in direct 3)contravention of international legislation and is causing serious health pro-blems for inhabitants of the 4)shanty towns that have sprung up amid the smouldering dumps in 5)Lagos and 6)Accra.
Campaigners believe 7)unscrupulous scrap merchants are illegally dumping millions of tonnes of dangerous waste on the developing world 8)under the guise of exporting it for use in schools and hospitals. They are calling for better policing of the ban on exports of e-waste, which can release lead, 9)mercury and other dangerous chemicals.
“10)Ghana is increasingly becoming a 11)dumping ground for waste from Europe and the US,” according to Mike Anane, director of the League of Environmental Journalists in Ghana. “The people that 12)break open these monitors tell me that they suffer from nausea, headaches and 13)respiratory problems.”
More than half a million computers arrive in Lagos every month but only about one in four works. The rest are sold as scrap, smashed up and burned.
Millions of tons of e-waste disappears from the developed world every year and continues to reappear in developing countries, despite international bans.
14)Lucrative
The illegal trade in e-waste is highly lucrative. It is possible to extract more gold out of a tonne of electronic circuitry than from a tonne of gold-bearing rock. But illegal dumping is putting risk at charities and other organisations that donate second-hand equipment to the developing world.
Since the introduction of the Basle Ban outlawing the export of 15)hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries in 1992, computers have become an everyday item. Consumers and businesses are replacing their kit at an ever increasing rate,
creating a new waste mountain.
Six years ago the EU produced the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
16)directive, which introduced new curbs and restrictions on the movement of e-waste. The directive heavily regulates the movement of e-waste for recycling and bans its export for disposal. It also introduced a scheme under which the cost of properly disposing of electronic equipment put on the market after August 2005 must be picked up by the producers of the waste-manufacturers, retailers and importers.
But DanWatch, a partner organisation of Consumers International, has evidence that computer equipment from British companies and even local authorities is being dumped in west Africa.
“We filmed children as young as six searching for metal scraps in the earth, which was littered with the toxic waste from thousands of shattered
17)cathode ray tubes,” said Benjamin Holst, co-founder of DanWatch. “A whole community is virtually living and working in this highly toxic environment, which is growing every day.”
Unscrupulous
Without this cash there is little incentive for developing nations to start investing in proper recycling facilities. As a result the e-waste problem is likely to grow, not because of unscrupulous European exporters but because of the increasing number of computers being sold in the developing world.
When you look at the whole product lifetime of a computer, 75% of the environmental damage is done before the computer is switched on for the first time. It is the production, the mining, the factories producing the kit and the use of toxic materials—that is where the environmental damage is done. So if we do not make the producer responsible for dealing with these environmental issues we are never going to get a redesign of compu-ters; we are never going to get computers that are produced in a more environmentally friendly way.
It is a call taken up by Martin Hojsík, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace International. “We want the producers to be responsible for the take-back of their kit,” he said.
The hope is that the sheer expense of making producers pay for the disposal of their computer equipment wherever it is sold or used across the world, will spur the industry towards making “greener” machines.
To bring a quick end to the spectacle of children 18)scrabbling around in toxic waste dumps in Africa, Europe’s regulators and more importantly its consumers and businesses need to take responsibility for disposing of their computer equipment.
每天，来自西欧和美国的成千上万的废弃电脑汇集到西非国家的港口，堆积成“毒山”，孩子们把这些电脑烧毁拆分，拿其中的金属部分去换钱。
发达国家大肆倾倒电子垃圾直接违反了有关国际条例，也对当地居民的健康状况构成严重威胁，在尼日利亚首都拉各斯和加纳首都阿克拉，简陋的小屋如雨后春笋般从如山的电子垃圾堆中涌现。
有关抗议者认为，不法废品商人打着出口供学校及医院使用的电脑之旗号，堂而皇之地把成百万吨有毒垃圾倾泄到发展中国家来。这些电子垃圾会释放铅、水银及其他危险化学物质，有关人士呼吁加大对禁止出口电子垃圾的监管力度。
“加纳已日渐成为欧洲和美国的电子废物倾销场，”加纳环境新闻记者联盟负责人迈克尔•安纳内如是说，“拆解电脑显示器的人告诉我说，他们出现恶心、头痛和呼吸系统疾病等症状。”
每个月进入拉各斯的电脑超过五十万部，但仅有四分之一左右依然能使用，其余的都被当废品卖掉，砸碎和焚毁。
尽管国际禁令已经出台，但每年仍有几百万吨电子垃圾从发达国家消失，转而又在发展中国家重新出现。
获利丰厚
电子垃圾非法贸易的回报是相当诱人的，一吨电路所含的金也许会比一吨含金石中的还要多。然而，非法倾泄也因此连累了真正的慈善机构，以及那些向发展中国家捐赠二手设备的组织。
旨在禁止将有害污染物从发达国家向不发达国家转移的《巴塞尔公约》于1992年正式生效，现在计算机已被列入日常用品的一项。消费者及企业正以前所未有的速度进行着计算机的更新换代，计算机成了新的巨大污染源。
六年前，欧盟出台了《废弃电动电子设备指令》（缩写WEEE），对电子垃圾的处理作出了新的禁令和限制。新的条款强调要对电子垃圾进行回收，禁止以出口的方式进行废弃处理。新的方案还规定，2005年8月之后投放市场的电子设备产品，其处置费用遵循“谁产生，谁负责”的原则，也就是要由生产厂家、零售商或进口商负责。
然而，国际消费者协会的合作组织DanWatch却发现，英国公司，甚至是英国当地政府部门依然把计算机设备往西非国家倾销转移。
“我们拍到这里年仅六岁的孩子在泥地上挖金属碎片，这些碎片散得一地都是，还有无数零散的阴极射线管释放的有害废物，”DanWatch的创始人之一本杰
明•豪斯特说道，“毫不夸张地说，这里的所有人都生活和工作在一个高度有害的环境里，而这种现状还在每天不断恶化。”
肆无忌惮
如果没有金钱的鼓励，发展中国家实在缺乏投资电子废弃物回收设备的动力。因此，电子垃圾问题有可能将进一步恶化，这不是因为欧洲国家肆无忌惮地倾泄，而是因为计算机在发展中国家的销售数量与日俱增。
当你纵观一台计算机的整体寿命时，就会发现它对环境造成的破坏，有75%是在你第一次接通电源开始使用它之前就已经造成了。生产过程、采矿、制造计算机的工厂以及对有毒材料的使用，这些都对环境造成了破坏。因此，如果我们不让生产厂商负起环保的责任，我们就永远都无法对计算机进行改进，我们也永远无法以一种更环保的方式生产计算机。
国际绿色和平组织提倡处理有害物体的马丁•霍塞克呼吁：“我们希望厂家负起回收自己产品的责任。”
有识之士希望给厂家施加压力，他们的产品无论在世界上哪里出售或使用，厂家都要为自己产品的回收处置负责，此举是希望能推动电子产品行业朝着更加绿色环保的方向发展。
要想尽早结束非洲孩子到处乱翻有毒废弃垃圾这一幕，欧洲的相关规范制定者、更重要的是欧洲消费者及公司企业必须为自己废弃计算机设备的处置问题负责。