The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently published a report (PDF), according to which the U.S. needs to emit new regulations to limit the amount of electronic product waste that they export and properly enforce existing ones.

Environmental Protection Agencies safety regulations are severely lacking, according to GAO director of natural resources and environment John Stephenson, who said that e-waste is "a low priority for EPA” at a hearing of a House Foreign Affairs' subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment on Wednesday.

GAO is saying that most companies export large amounts of e-waste to countries like China and India, where they are liable to be properly mishandled, and pose serious health and safety concerns to workers in those countries due to exposure to harmful materials like lead, mercury and cadmium. GAO has recommended that the EPA draw up additional regulations to force companies to properly handle their e-waste.

Not even CRT monitors, GAO says, which are the only e-waste products mentioned by EPA regulations, are seeing better handling. The rules governing CRTs have been in effect since January 2007 and so far only one company has been fined for breaking them, however GAO agents posing as foreign CRT buyers have found no less than 43 U.S. companies who were prepared to readily ignore the rules.

Although e-waste represents, according to EPA figures, only 1/10,000th of the more than 30 million tons of solid waste produced by the U.S.A. each day, the large amounts of lead found in it would pose a serious concern if, after a product is disassembled, the toxins contained found their way into local water streams or into the air.