Brazil is now considering possible modifications to federal legislation to more strictly punish such crimes, and of using X-ray equipment to identify material within the containers. But in much of the developing world, it's business as usual with middle-men brokering the deal to get the toxic e-trash past customs.
With the United States looking to undermine the Basel Convention and Ban, there doesn't appear to be any solution on the horizon.
"We are the absolute outlier from the rest of the developed nations of the world on this topic," says Kyle. "The rest of the world is covered by the Basel Convention, and the only other countries that haven't ratified it other than us are Afghanistan and Haiti. So nobody should be taking our waste. It's a violation even to accept our e-waste, so we're violating all of those developing nation's laws by sending the waste there."