Although consumer electronics such as the television have been popular since the 1920s, recycling of them was almost unheard of until early 1991. The first electronic waste recycling scheme was implemented in Switzerland, beginning with collection of old refrigerators but gradually expanding to cover all devices. After these schemes were set up, many countries did not have the capacity to deal with the sheer quantity of e-waste they generated or its hazardous nature. They began to export the problem to developing countries without enforced environmental legislation. This is cheaper, as recycling computer monitors in the United States costs 10 times more than in China. Demand in Asia for electronic waste began to grow when scrap yards found that they could extract valuable substances such as copper, silver, iron, silicon, nickel, and gold, during the recycling process. The 2000s saw a large increase in both the sale of electronic devices and their growth as a waste stream: in 2002, e-waste grew faster than any other type of waste in the EU. This caused investment in modern, automated facilities to cope with the influx of redundant appliances, especially after strict laws were implemented in 2003.