Computer "recycler" dumps computers on private land

When a man with a truck offered to "recycle" a load of old computer monitors in 2001, the University City School District was happy to pay him $5 apiece to be rid of them. So district officials were distressed to learn that some of its equipment has turned up dumped in a once-idyllic place called Echo Valley amid stately cottonwoods and spring daisies.

"When someone tells you they're going to dispose of them properly, you don't expect them to come back and haunt you years later," said Daphne Dorsey, spokeswoman for the district.

"We get statements from recyclers saying they will dispose of them properly. But what they do with them, we don't know. Because all we have is a piece of paper," said Charles Norwood of the Irving Independent School District in Texas.