iPods became a symbol of USA. Apple Inc. is launching new iPod, new iPhone or new Macbook every season. Every month new electronic products pours in from various companies all over the world. This kind of fast shifting trend tends to appear more frequently especially in the field of electronic gadgets. The latest MP3 player you bought today will be no longer the ?latest product? only a month later. People buy electronics more frequently and also trash them more frequently.

 While so many electronic products are made and consumed, no one seems to be concentrating at the disposal of these electronics. Compared to other wastes, electronics are more harmful to the environment when throw away thoughtlessly since they contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals in them. That can potentially leak into the environment and cause ecological damage. Thus there needs to be extra care in the disposal procedure.

However, the electronic products are composed of metals, plastics, glass and other valuable resources. When recycled properly, these materials can be reused, which reduces the green house gas emission caused to manufacture the virgin materials. According to the EPA report, recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 US homes in a year and for every million cell phones we recycle, 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered. This is important because the amounts of rare earth metals, that electronics depend on, are dwindling.

Unfortunately, the vast amounts of electronic waste are being dumped in poor nations that are paid to accept the waste.  These countries are quickly becoming heavily polluted urban wastelands and the people are getting ill from volatile compounds that leach out of the waste.

Now we realized the importance of electronic disposure in suitable ways, there are some ways we can get rid of our old electronic gadgets to follow. First you should try to buy electronics from companies that have recycling programs, such as Apple, or consult your local government where old electronics can be recycled. You can donate your electronics too. You can find places to donate your electronics by searching up www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/donate.htm

  By making little changes people can prevent millions of tons of old electronics going into garbage dumps and make the environment cleaner.