Tonight, we are going to take you
to one of the most toxic places on Earth ---
a place that government officials
and gangsters don't want you to see.
It's a town in China where you can't breathe the air
or drink the water,
a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead.
It's worth risking a visit
because much of this poison is coming out of
the homes, schools and offices of America.
This is a story about recycling ---
about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled
into an underground sewer that flows
from the United States and into the wasteland.
That wasteland is piled
with the burning remains of some of the most expensive,
sophisticated stuff that consumers crave.
What are they hiding?
The answer lies in the first law of the digital age: newer is better.
In with the next thing, and out with the old TV, phone or computer.
All of this becomes obsolete, electronic garbage called ¡°e-waste¡±.
You know, my computer seems like such a smooth clean machine.
What's inside it?
Lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, polyvinyl chlorides.
All of these materials have known toxicological effects
that range from brain damage
to kidney diseases to mutations, cancers.
Allen Hershkowitz is a senior scientist and authority
on waste management at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The problem with e-waste is that
it is the fastest-growing
component of the municipal waste stream worldwide.
What do you mean ¡®fastest growing¡¯?
Well, we throw out about 130,000 computers every day
in the United States.
In the United States alone?
Correct. And we throw out over 100 million cell phones every year.
And here is what that looks like.
At a recycling event in Denver,
we found cars bumper-to-bumper for blocks,
in a line that lasted for hours.
Most folks in line were hoping to do the right thing,
expecting that their waste would be recycled
in state-of-the-art facilities that exist here in America.
But really, there's no way for them to know where all of this is going.
The recycling industry is exploding and, as it turns out,
some so-called recyclers are shipping the waste overseas,
where it's broken down for the precious metals inside.