News

• October 2006: Reviews of two recent books entitled High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health and Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry
• November 2004: Development Gateway section on ICT for Environment
• August 8, 2004: This blog has sections on WSIS and ICT and the environment: www.incommunicado.info
• May 30, 2004: Greenpeace warns against hype of film "The Day after Tomorrow".
• May 28, 2004: Film entitled "The Day after Tomorrow" is released.
• April 2004: The Basel Convention’s partnership initiative on computers and the environment is to be launched at the 7th Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention on October 25 in our calendar of events
• Nov. 30, 2003: Imported electronic trash threatens environment
• October 31, 2003: New Confidence about Service Providers to Spur Purchases of New Cell Phones in the United States. What Will Happen to the Old ones? (CNN)
• August 4, 2003: Panel debate to be held at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva and broadcast on TVE’s Earth Report programme on BBC World TV
• August 1, 2003: Improving the language on e-waste in WSIS documents
• June 9, 2003: UN Secretary General publishes Annual Report on ICT Task Force emphasising role in WSIS
• June 5th, 2003: The World Bank's portal called the Global Development Gateway is featuring our work under http://www.developmentgateway.org/ict/environment
• June 3rd, 2003: The G-8 in Evian promise to share science and technology for sustainable development in their Action Plan "...inter alia by examining the possibility of opening our research programmes to third countries."
• June 2, 2003: UNEP launches "Green Customs" project to help customs officers beat illegal trade in chemicals, hazardous wastes and endangered species.
• Computer Take Back Campaign to support EU-style legislation in the US
• June 4, 2003: WEEE directive boosts recycling (BBC)
• US company reconditions and sells mobile phones at low prices to developing countries. (BBC) (thanks to Charles Geiger for this link)
• "Scrapping the High Tech Myth - Computer Waste in India", page leading to download in Adobe's PDF format (thanks to Charles Geiger for this link)
• April 11, 2003: United States said to be "currently making efforts to seek ratification of the Basel Convention" in this news story on human rights (ENS)
• April 11, 2003: Environment and Human Rights Linked Before UN Commission (ENS)
• April 11, 2003: Policy Dialogue held by UNCTAD/ICTSD in Geneva on a Proposal for an International Science and Technology Treaty
• April 10, 2003: WSIS activist professor Wolfgang Kleinwächter reports in German from the 13th Computer Freedom and Privacy conference in New York
• Satellite studies carried out by UNEP's collaborating GRID-Geneva centre reveal environmental deterioration in Iraq:
• March 22, 2003: "Garden of Eden" in Southern Iraq Likely to Disappear Completely in Five Years Unless Urgent Action Taken (from the World Water Forum)
• March 30, 2003: Air pollution from Baghdad fires poses risks for human health and the environment
• March 20, 2003: Water summit eclipsed by war (NZZ)
• March 13th, 2003: "The European Union's recently approved directive on 'Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment' (WEEE) could generate enough demand to make recycling profitable. "Waste not, want not (The Economist) (thanks to Charles Geiger for this pointer)
• March 14-15, 2003: Initiatives meet at UNESCO in Paris to plan "a global strategy for more efficient use of recycled IT material" ("initiatives" including Microsoft).
• One NGO attending the above meeting has opened its Digital Partnership portal.
• March 7, 2003: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan poses an information challenge to scientists of the world as an Editorial for Science magazine: "Your solidarity can help developing countries build up their capacity to participate effectively in negotiations of international treaties and agreements involving science."
• Year 2003 to 2006 projections of developments pertaining to the directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) along with links to evidence of the positions of the EU, National governments, Industry, NGOs & Think Tanks and the Press.
• February 25, 2003: Electronics Recyclers Pledge: "No Export, No Dumping, No Prisons" (GreenBiz.com)
• January 10, 2003: E-Waste: The Dark Side of the Digital Age (Wired)
• December 9, 2002: Beginning of coverage of the COP 5 to the Basel Convention by Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB)
• November 30, 2002: The e-waste land: Today's throwaway culture has created a toxic time bomb - techno trash. But will new laws deal with our mountain of unwanted computers, TVs and toasters? Rachel Shabi reports in The Guardian (thanks to Myriam Horngren for this pointer)
• "New life for old mobiles", the BBC reporting on the mobile phone initiative
• 21 November 2002: ASIAN GOVERNMENTS LAUNCH ACTION TO TACKLE ‘E-WASTES’ (United Nations Press Release)
• October 31, 2002: The President of the COP 5 to the Basel Convention, Mr. Philippe Roch, State Secretary, Director of Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, BUWAL, Switzerland, has launched an initiative for a sustainable partnership on environmentally sound management of end-of-life mobile phones with industry partners such as Alcatel, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens, Sony Ericsson and Philips plus network operators. Download this description of the initiative in Adobe's PDF format. The document states explicitly that "Parties and Signatories to the Basel Convention and other stakeholders, including NGOs are invited to comment on this initiative to the Secretariat of the Basel Convention."
• October 17, 2002: "The world's insatiable demand for cellular phones and other consumer luxuries is fueling violent conflict," claims Michael Renner, author of the new report the Anatomy of Resource Wars from the Worldwatch Institute. "In the Democratic Republic of the Congo rival armies fight for control over deposits of coltan, a commodity that just over a decade ago had little commercial value, but is now vital for the one billion plus cell phones in use today."

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Update: 28 Sept. 2006