What seems like a simple choice can have a huge impact on a large scale. In areas such as India, Africa and China, vast areas are filled with consumer waste products ranging from food packaging to what has been dubbed “e-waste” by several public policy advocates. These mountains of material which have been discarded by the buyer rather than recycled, are dismantled and disposed of in waste treatment facilities, but environmental impacts occur in the process. Liquid and atmospheric releases end up in water bodies, aquifers, soil and air and therefore in both domestic and wild terrestrial and marine animals, and in crops eaten by both animals and humans (Frazzoli, 2010). One such case was observed in Guiya, China (Sthiannopkao, 2012), where levels of carcinogens in duck ponds and rice fields exceeded international standards for agricultural areas and levels of cadmium, copper, nickel and lead in rice paddies were above international standards.
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