Last year, 23,000 tonnes of IT and electronic equipment was shipped out [of the UK] illegally, mostly to China, west Africa, Pakistan and India...The [environmental] groups...identified a town called Guiyu, some 200 miles north-east of Hong Kong...where up to 100,000 migrant labourers break up and reprocess obsolete computers from around the world. The work involves men, women and children unaware of the health and environmental hazards of dismantling such goods - processes that include the open burning of plastics and wires, acid used to extract gold...