No easy answers on electronic waste recycling

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Every January sees technology fanatics, journalists, bloggers and YouTubers descend on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Products to be unveiled at CES since the first show in the 1960s include the Blu-ray disc, Microsoft’s Xbox, Plasma TV, Mini Disc and the VCR.

This week virtual reality headsets, drones, 3D printers – and Sony’s new turntable and Kodak’s new Super 8 camera – dominated the CES headlines.

Products which have long since left homes and offices can be found in dumps for electronic waste, like the one visited by Ed Butler on Business Daily (BBC World Service, Wednesday). Accra in Ghana is home to one of the biggest dumps of this kind in the world, and research is being carried out into the effects of the waste on people working there.

The heavy metals found in disposed electronics include toxic substances mercury, lead and cadmium, but everything has a value to anyone willing to make $10 a day to go through the piles of discarded PC cases and monitors. Respiratory illnesses and heart disease are some of the health issues facing those working in the dumps, and women and children not directly involved are also at risk.

Songs that were once listened to on Mini Disc players can be found on digital station KISSTORY, an extension of KISS. Whether you listened to Faithless, Daft Punk and TLC songs the first time around, or realise you probably should have been instead of your then favourites in the 90s and 00s, it’s surprisingly easy to dip into or leave on for hours at a time.

Some of the tracks on offer aren’t exactly strangers to radio in 2016, but there’s plenty of gems dropped between the well known songs and super quick presentation. After a while you come away with nostalgia for songs you haven’t heard in ages, and interest in songs you’re hearing for the first time. KISSTORY might not wish it was a little bit taller, or a baller, but it will be available across the UK on DAB digital radio later this year.

Absolute Radio 00s is one of the ‘decades’ stations from Absolute Radio. The station plays back to back music from the 2000s with no presenters, except for Christian O’Connell’s breakfast show and Frank Skinner.

Like most radio stations it has a Twitter account, and it’s hard not to read it in the voice of US comedy Parks and Recreation‘s intern character April Ludgate.