Inside the steel and glass office towers of Chile’s capital, Santiago, computers, printers, and faxes hum. Out on the streets, business executives and taxi drivers chat away on some of Chile’s 14 million cellular telephones. Urbanized, well educated, and home to 17 million people, Chile is one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America. And as is the case in the United States, all its electronic gadgets are beginning to lead to a whole lot of electronic waste. The country currently discards 300,000 computers a year, and by 2020 it will be grappling with an annual pile of 1.7 million trashed computers, estimate Daniel Garcés and Uca Silva, researchers at Plataforma RELAC (the Regional Platform on E-waste in Latin America and the Caribbean, a project sponsored by a Chilean NGO). Worldwide, e-waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream. This widening river of trash poses both human and environmental hazards. Each cathode ray tube in a television or computer monitor, for instance, contains several pounds of lead. Electronics also harbor mercury, cadmium, and other heavy metals. Many consumers and manufacturers dump these materials into landfills, where toxins leach into groundwater and poison people and animals. Even when people attempt to…