Toxic Waste in Guiyu

I'm still reeling from the horror story about cathode ray tubes and toxic waste on 60 Minutes on Sunday evening.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/printable4579229.shtml

Computer monitors have CRT screens, I learned, and 130,000 computers are discarded every day in the US. Not to mention 100 million cell phones per year.

These things should be recycled here, where their lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, and polyvinyl chlorides can be handled carefully.

But many are illegally exported to places like Guiyu, China, where people ignorant of the dangers injure their hands and lungs heating circuit boards and extracting the valuable metals. Children work and play amidst these chemicals.

60 Minutes called this city "a sort of Chernobyl of electronic waste."

I don't know what to do about this, except educate ourselves and maybe donate to Basel Action Network, which is trying to stop the dumping of toxic waste on poor countries. Go to http://www.ban.org/

Wikipedia says this about CRTs:
CRTs may contain toxic phosphors within the glass envelope. The glass envelopes of modern CRTs may be made from heavily leaded glass, which represent an environmental hazard. Indirectly heated vacuum tubes (including CRTs) use barium compounds and other reactive materials in the construction of the cathode and getter assemblies; normally this material will be converted into oxides upon exposure to the air, but care should be taken to avoid contact with the inside of all broken tubes.

Also there's a danger of implosion followed by explosion. We spend hours in close contact with these computer screens but know so little about their whole life histories and their dangers.