Features

SAN JOSE — What happened to that old computer after you sold it to a second-hand parts dealer? 

Environmental groups say there’s a good chance it ended up in a Third World dump, where thousands of laborers burn, smash and pick apart electronic waste to scavenge for the precious metals inside — unwittingly exposing themselves and their surroundings to innumerable toxic hazards. 

Now a report being released Monday documents one such “cyber-age nightmare” — a cluster of villages in southeastern China where computers still bearing the labels of their one-time owners in America are ripped apart and strewn along rivers and fields.