Current has, in its Naked China series of videos, this interesting but scary breakdown of just what happens to all those old PCs, printers, and DVD players that are obsoleted every year and binned.
In a place like China, where manual labor is their most abundant natural resource, it isn’t hard to turn a profit from tearing down imported e-waste and selling the valuable bits. The thing is, so much of e-waste is toxic or otherwise dangerous (not to mention the poor conditions in general for laborers) that the towns where it is the chief industry are seriously troubled. Take a few minutes while scarfing down your daily ramen to get a close look at where our PCs go to die.