Environmental groups say there's a good chance it ended up in a dump in the developing world, where thousands of laborers burn, smash and pick apart electronic waste to scavenge for the precious metals inside – unwittingly exposing themselves and their surroundings to toxic hazards.

Now a report being released Monday documents a cluster of villages in southeastern China where computers are ripped apart and strewn along rivers and fields.

One river sample in the area was found to have 190 times the pollution levels allowed under World Health Organization guidelines.

The authors of the report, called "Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia," hope it puts more pressure on the U.S. to increase domestic recycling efforts.

"I've seen a lot of dirty operations in Third World countries, but what was shocking was seeing all this post-consumer waste," said one of the report's authors, Jim Puckett of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network.