The reason in which the issue of e-waste is such a difficult one is because for most people it seems to be an "out of sight, out of mind" issue. It isn't entirely difficult to recycle your electronic products but it takes more effort than to just throw them into a recycle bin, also in all of the environmentally safe ways you most likely will have to pay a fee. It seems that most people don't care as much to take the time to go through these measures to ensure that their e-waste is safely recycled. Considering that e-waste is such a huge problem in the developing world, it appears that our government and the the governments of other well developed countries don't care because it is a cheap solution to an annoying problem. They don't have to worry that their children or themselves will get cancer or some other life-threatening illness. These people are poor third-world civilians who make no difference to them. So the issue is can you care enough about these people who are government has deemed insignificant?
I would say that my own habits are driven by this need to not over consume electronic products. I keep my cell phones for as long as they will function and that goes for everything else: laptop, ipod, etc. I also made a point to not even purchase an ipod until my portable CD player broke. I think that this is more efficient then just buying the newest model of everything because its "cooler" or because it has lots of special new advances, such as a phone that takes pictures. As far as recycling goes, I still have all of my old cell phones and my family still has the very first computer that we ever owned. So I don't think that we've ever attempted to recycle our electronic waste, but I can say that when the time comes I will make sure that we are sending our old and broken products to a reputable company that will safely recycle them.
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