Your Call 121708 Getting off the Gadget Treadmill

As the gift giving frenzy gets into relatively full swing, what happens to the discarded cellphones, computers and televisions? On the next Your Call we're talking all about the joys of holiday e-waste, and what we can do to reduce it. Electronic waste is only 2 percent of America's trash in landfills, but 70 percent of overall toxic waste. But most of the 100 million cellphones and 47 million computers thrown out each year are shipped to the poorest countries. Can you really fix the run down computer? Where can you recycle that extra television? Could someone else use your old cellphone? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Casey Harrel in Oakland
E-waste expert for Greenpeace International. He has been campaigning for over 10 years in the environmental field on toxic chemical reduction and energy issues, both for Greenpeace and other organizations in the Bay Area and Washington DC.

Jim Pucket in Seattle
Executive Director of the Basel Action Network, an international NGO working to end the global trade in toxic eWaste products.

Emy Tseng
Project Director for the Digital Inclusion Programs for the San Francisco Department of Technology. The digital inclusion program works with Goodwill and ReliaTech to collect used computers from City Agencies and businesses, refurbish them and place them in the community for people in need and distributes used cellphones in women's shelters

James W. Kao
Founder, President & CEO of GreenCitizen, a Bay Area eWaste recycling company.

Click to Listen: Getting off the Gadget Treadmills