Did you ever wonder what happens to your old laptop or cellphone when you throw it away?

Chances are some of your old electronic junk will end up in China.

According to a recent United Nations report, "China now appears to be the largest e-waste dumping site in the world."

E-waste, or electronic waste, consists of everything from scrapped TVs, refrigerators and air conditioners to that old desktop computer that may be collecting dust in your closet.

BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Only three out of the 74 Chinese cities that were monitored for air quality last year reported clean air, while the large majority suffered various degrees of pollution, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Tuesday.

The three cities to meet government-set air quality standards are Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province, Zhoushan in east China's Zhejiang Province, and Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

So much for China's change of heart when it comes to taking care of the environment.

The Chinese government recently approved construction on nine of 40 large-scale plants that will convert coal into synthetic natural gas — a process that produces seven times more greenhouse gas emissions than regular natural gas production, and uses as much as 100 times the water as shale gas extraction, according to a new study by Duke University.

 “PM2.5” seems an odd and wonky term for the blogosphere to take up, but that is precisely what has happened in China in recent weeks. It refers to the smallest solid particles in the atmosphere—those less than 2.5 microns across. Such dust can get deep into people’s lungs; far deeper than that rated as PM10. Yet until recently China’s authorities have revealed measurements only for PM10. When people realised this, an online revolt broke out. Such was the public pressure that authorities caved in, and PM2.5 data are now being published for Beijing and a handful of other cities.