Toxic tea party

One of the most serious consequences of the dramatic floods which swamped parts of England in recent weeks was the loss of clean drinking water. Even now that the citizens of Tewkesbury have running water once again, it will be a few more days before they can safely start drinking their tap water.

Such a loss of amenity for any length of time is almost unthinkable to us these days - words like 'disaster' and 'catastrophe' scream from tabloid headlines at the first hint of such trouble, but in many places around the world, clean water at any time is a luxury.

In south eastern China, for example, large-scale recycling of toxic e-waste has created a landscape not dissimilar to the 'Black Country' of Victorian England, and has poisoned the local ground water so badly that green tea made with local water is no longer a healthy transparent green, but an impenetrable cloud of black.

Read more about the pollution caused by China's toxic e-waste trade.

Slideshow: electronics' dirty secret