It’s the fastest growing type of waste: computers, phones, televisions, iPods and all the rest. The flip side to rapid advances in technology is that electronic products are becoming obsolete at an alarming rate, and the fate of much of the millions of tons of e-waste generated every year in the West makes for very grim reading.

The bad news is this: our favourite electrical items contain highly toxic materials which are harmful to humans and our environment. The problems really start when it comes to disposing of our used technology. A large proportion of the e-waste collected for “recycling” from the USA and parts of Europe is actually shipped to less developed countries, where the products are dismantled and separated using primitive technologies that expose workers to deadly levels of chemicals as they extract the metals, toners and plastics from computers and other e-waste.

"A sea of television housings, cathode ray tubes, monitors and other imported electronic  waste not salable at the Alaba market in Lagos, Nigeria,  is dumped here in a nearby swamp" (c) Basel Action Network

What to do?

Journey On is a fantastic local transport website for Brighton and Hove. The site has been around for a year, and last week relaunched with a raft of new features and a new look.

To celebrate the launch of the new website Cogapp created a 'dynamic doodle' stretching between the east and west extremes of the city.

Snippets from a D&AD lecture on sustainability in March 2007...

The questions posed were:

How do brands and agencies communicate to people in an environmentally friendly way whilst maintaining sales?

Would brands be better off spending their money on actually helping the environment and not wasting it telling people they help the environment?