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In the rush to keep up with the latest technological trends, many of us don't think about what to do with our old, forlorn TVs and computers. These machines go from being the hottest on the market to just another contribution to the 22 million tons of electronic waste (or e-waste) produced globally each year. This figure is rapidly increasing, and many experts believe the worst is yet to come.

Up to 75 percent of potential e-waste is sitting in garages, drawers, and storage spaces in the form of broken or unused electronics, waiting to fill landfills where they might leach harmful chemicals such as brain-damaging lead, neurotoxic mercury and carcinogenic arsenic, into our air, soil and groundwater. Each computer monitor contains on average 5 to 8 pounds of lead, for example, and consumer electronics as a whole contribute an astonishing 40 percent of the lead that is found in landfills, according to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

Plastics in computers pose other disposal hazards. Each year computers contribute up to 250 million pounds of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic—which releases highly toxic, carcinogenic dioxins when manufactured or incinerated—into the U.S. waste stream. TVs, monitors, and computer circuit boards also use flame-retardant chemicals known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs). PBDE is a suspected hormone disruptor, interferes with thyroid functioning and has affected development in laboratory mice. Most alarming, some studies have found that levels of some PBDEs have been doubling in human breast milk every five years, and that levels are highest in North American women. PBBs are considered probable carcinogens by the U.S. National Toxicology Program.

"Unfortunately, it's legal in many states to simply dump this waste in landfills or burn it in incinerators," says Barbara Kyle of the Computer Takeback Campaign.

Recycling, however, doesn't always do better: 50 to 80 percent of recycled electronics end up in China, India and developing nations in Africa where they are taken apart improperly by untrained workers without protective equipment. These workers and their families can be exposed to toxic substances that also end up in neighboring waterways.