Any self-respecting gadget hound knows that China is responsible for packing millions of shipping containers with the consumer electronics we crave. What you may not know is what we ship in return: our waste for recycling. Of growing concern is e-waste, resulting from the deluge of PCs, cellphones, televisions and crapgadgets we churn through at an accelerating clip each year. While domestic recycling programs are good-intentioned, often the most toxic of our e-waste is shipped illegally back to China and boiled down for its precious metals under some of the most crude conditions you can imagine. When faced with the choice of familial poverty or the slow accumulation of poison in their bloodstream (for $8 per day), it's not hard to imagine what many rural Chinese people will choose. So while we give Greenpeace's self-congratulatory promotions and oft-subjective "Guide to Greener Electronics" company ratings the occasional hard time, their attempts to raise e-waste awareness are commendable. Now go ahead, check the video from 60 Minutes' intrepid reporters after the break and let the guilt wash over you.

Update: As noted by reader Jason, a more thorough (and disturbing) exploration of these e-waste dumps can be found in a Current TV video shot last year in the same region.

If you're anything like us, you probably cringe every time a new USB flash drive is announced, but then the guilty pleasure takes over and you just have to look anyway. At first glance the "Recycle" from INF Import isn't much to look at, but then we figured that's kind of the point. After all, what better way to hide all your most precious and/or illicit data than in a totally bland enclosure that looks like something that chipped off your wall in the last earthquake? -- which isn't far off seeing as how it's composed of recycled newspaper. Oddly enough no storage capacity is mentioned, so lets hope your stack of worldly secrets doesn't run too large, or you may have to tile your walls with these babies.

Update: The INF site has now been updated to include the storage capacity: 512MB - 16GB.

Hopefully by now you know that the gadget in your pocket or notebook on your lap is full of toxic ooze seeping into your fingers with every tap. This has retailers and manufacturers scrambling to help you recycle those wares, the latest being Samsung with its new Recycling Direct plan. It expands on the company's trio of limited recycling programs that cover only mobile phones, toner, and office equipment. The new program will accept any obsolete or broken product free of charge -- assuming it has a "Samsung" label somewhere on it. (You can recycle other stuff too for a fee.) Partnerships are currently being negotiated with "respected" facilities in all 50 states, meaning you'll be able can lay your old celly or washing machine to rest in person starting next month.

[Via Crave]

Bay State startup Beacon Power isn't just another wind / solar / hydroelectric outfit. Oh no, this firm is more concerned with reducing the emissions from the energy plants we already have in place. Put simply, the company's 2,800-pound flywheels are used to store and output energy when needed, a service Beacon's CEO is dubbing "frequency regulation." Essentially, said devices will "match power supply to the grid with power demand from the grid," which curbs energy waste and keeps loads in perfect balance. As it stands, the only disclosed expansion plans include more of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but if it can rope in enough customers, we reckon the sky's the limit. Video after the jump.

[Thanks, John]

Even casual fans of Jemaine Clement could appreciate the Recycl-o-sort -- after all, it's hard to deny the vitalness of sorting out the recycling. In that spirit, a team of MIT students concocted a prototype that automatically sifts through recyclables and deposits them into the appropriate bin depending on makeup. The sun-powered device is currently being tested in Boston's Codman Square area as part of Family, Inc.'s recycling awareness campaign, and it reportedly uses a "turntable" to pass each item through a trio of sensors to determine whether it's aluminum, plastic, glass or just plain rubbish. Call us crazy, but this whole thing just brings back memories of that team building exercise we did back in '99.

[Via Core77]

IBM is looking to save around $1.5 million per year and be a kinder citizen to the environment by instituting a greener method for recycling silicon. Previously, IBM would sandblast defunct wafers to make sure no trade secrets left the premises when they were sold off to solar-panel outfits or used as "monitors." The new process, however, involves defacing the circuitry with an abrasive pad and water, which saves a few bills and leaves the silicon in much better shape for reuse. Reportedly, Big Blue has already implemented the new approach in its Essex Junction, Vermont facility, and the East Fishkill, New York plant is all set to follow suit shortly.

As the green trend looms ever larger over the consumer electronics industry, HP is taking full advantage of the opportunity by unveiling the environmentally friendly rp5700 slim desktop PC. The company toots its own horn by boasting about the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold award that the machine has garnered, and we'd assume that building it from 95-percent recyclable components and packing it in a box made from at least 25-percent post-consumer recycled cardboard had something to do with it. Additionally, the unit sports an uber-efficient power supply and comes with "an optional solar renewable energy source" to extract juice from the sun. As for hardware, you'll find Intel Core 2 Duo chips up to 2.13GHz, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, SATA hard drives as large as 250GB, optional RAID 1 setups, and your choice of operating system. Of course, the EPEAT Gold-certified machine steps it down to a Celeron 440 CPU with 512MB of RAM, and while this particular configuration will start at $817, other options are available today from $648 right on up.

[Via Slashgear]

Finally, something useful to do with these heaps of ballpoint pens that either don't conform to our writing style, or worse, show up with ink that refuses to leave the cartridge. LSN Global is making sure we do something other than pick locks with our leftover pens, and furthermore, will probably save us a bit of cash by avoiding those overpriced replacement styli. The ECOPLUS can purportedly fit within the confines of a given writing instrument, clip onto one's pocket, and on a whim, can be whipped out and used to jot down notes in a lecture or throw down your digital John Hancock at a retail checkout counter. Not a lot of details beyond that, but be sure to click through for a few more shots of the creation in case you're feelin' a little DIY action rather than waiting it out.

A select few have already discovered just how lucrative going green can be, but for mega-corps around the globe, this year's Earth Day was just as much about earning green as it was recycling. While throngs of companies have already instituted programs to recollect and recycle customer's obsolete gear, outfits are now looking for easy money in selling scrap material, used plastics, hardware components, and "refurbished PCs," all while tooting their own horn and eliciting a good bit of positive PR love along the way. According to IDC analysts, the global demand for such junk unusual treasures is on the rise, making it easier for companies such as Dell, Apple, and Sony to flip the returned hardware for extra cash. Furthermore, some say that these in-your-face recycling programs could even entice users to scrap their current PCs faster than they otherwise would, which could also lead to more business with said companies as they plunk down for yet another computer that they honestly didn't need. Sure, the motives behind going green in the tech industry could be swaying, but as long as hardware retirement and disposal is being handled in an environmentally-friendly way, we suppose there's not much room to repine.

We've seen washing machines that tell you whose turn it is, offer remote monitoring, sterilize garb, require no water, and tackle more stains than we knew were possible to pick up, but Sanyo's forthcoming machine lives life on the greener side, and cuts down your trips to the dry cleaners to boot. The aptly-named AQUA was spotted as CES, and aside from the thoughtfully designed entry door that's high enough for folks to reach while standing up, this gizmo rocks a unique "Aqualoop" feature that allows it to recycle water for use in future washes. Moreover, the Air Wash function enables owners to clean clothes at home that are typically reserved for the dry cleaners, as it "infuses" your swag with odor / bacteria-killing chemicals without the use of water, leaving your wearables fresh and your body at home. Although there's no word on price or future availability just yet, we've still got more than a few reservations when it comes to reusing soiled liquid to, um, clean dirty clothing.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Whether you call it a thumb drive, memory stick, flash drive, or disgo, by now you've probably got at least one unused USB flash drive lying around the house or office. Instead of chucking that schwag into the digital dump and making Iron Eyes Cody cry, why not donate your 16MB (or greater drive) to Inveneo in their quest to leverage ICT and close the digital divide in developing countries? The flash drives will be provided to students, aid workers, and small business entrepreneurs among others in need of a quick and easy means to store and share information. Come on, everybody's doing it, and besides, mom always said it's better to make tax deductible donations, than to receive. Click the read link below to contribute or read on for more details about Inveneo.

[Via boingboing]

Announced back in June, Dell's new free recycling program is now live, meaning you can recycle any Dell product at no cost to you, without any of those pesky requirements to buy a new Dell machine in the process. All you've gotta do is head on over to their site, print out your free shipping voucher, pack and ship your obsolete Dell product and then throw a little environmentally-friendly party for your environmentally-friendly bad self. We can't say even a program like this could get Apple off the Greenpeace naughty list, but it seems worth a shot -- Dell's just making y'all look bad.

[Via Slashdot]

PC manufacturers and governments alike are catching on to the fact that the average, well-meaning consumption sloth would love to recycle their gear, as long as it's free and someone else does the work. Dell, Apple and others offer programs which allow free recycling of product with the purchase of new, presumably, replacement gear. Now Dell has one-upped the industry by allowing Dell owners to arrange for free-pickup of any Dell-branded product, anytime -- no purchase required. After Dell customers enter their asset tag(s) on Dell's recycling website, they simply print out the pre-paid air bill and follow the instructions to pack and schedule the collection of their equipment. Yeah, ok, there's still effort involved and there's always the risk of your Ditty ending up in the digital dump, but until toll-booth operators or other robotic life forms can be dispatched, it's about as close to effortless as your gonna get.

[Via CNET]

The Golden State has always been fairly legislation-happy when it comes to keeping things green, and now they're trying to "Keep California Beautiful" with a new program to require cellphone recycling. Californians have been restricted from throwing phones into the trash since February 8, 2006, but as of July 1 all cellphone retailers in California will be required to establish a collection and recycling program. Recycling will be free, but if even that is too much of a hassle, you can visit the KCB website to get a postage paid box for sending your old phone to a happy resting place from the comfort of your own home. KCB will also provide postage-paid collection boxes to businesses for collecting from employees and customers, so the program shouldn't cause much of an inconvenience. Unless, of course, you wanted to mix a bit of arsenic and beryllium into your water supply.