When you call someone to your offices to fix your photocopier and they give you that engineering report that it's beyond fixing, all you think about is justifying the purchase of a replacement and how soon you can get it.
You rarely think of the disposal of the old one. It's usually sold for a song or given away for free to whoever can take it way. Where it goes depends on how 'salvageable' it is. Stripped for parts, pieces are thrown anywhere without caring what effect their non-'biodegradable' nature will have on the environment.
In Zambia, our idea of waste disposal is throwing things in the garbage which is later dumped at a landfill. Technology waste or "technotrash" contains hazardous materials from metals to liquids that end up going to the ground and may end up in our water. Someone may argue that even stuff from other waste does already end up contaminating our soils at the dump site rendering it useless either way but this added special waste is one that makes the mix more dangerous.
My hope is that some for of legislature exists to outlaw the dumping of technotrash like household waste. It's enforcement is another issue all together but having a law would mean government is alive to the potential risks to the environment.
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