China’s growth exacerbates e-waste woes

GUIYU, China – The air smells acrid from squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

For five years, environmentalists and the media have highlighted the danger to workers who dismantle much of the world’s junked electronics. Yet a visit to this southeastern Chinese town regarded as the heartland of “e-waste” disposal shows little has improved. In fact, the problem is worse because of China’s own contribution.

China produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year, said Jamie Choi, a toxics campaigner with Greenpeace China in Beijing. That adds up to roughly 5 million television sets, 4 million fridges, 5 million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million personal computers, according to Choi.

“Most e-waste in China comes from overseas, but the amount of domestic e-waste is on the rise,” he said.

This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, the EOA says it’s as much as 10 times cheaper to export waste to developing countries. In China, migrants from the countryside willingly endure health risks to earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.

International agreements and European regulations have made a dent in the export of old electronics to China, but loopholes – and sometimes bribes – allow many to skirt the requirements. And only a sliver of the electronics sold get returned to manufacturers for safe recycling.

Upward of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the skies and rivers.

Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to come by. However, experts estimate 70 percent of the 20-50 million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped in China, with most of the rest going to India and African nations.

Imports slip in despite a Chinese ban and Beijing’s ratification of the Basel Convention, an international agreement that outlaws the trade. Industry monitor Ted Smith said one U.S. exporter told him all that was needed to get shipments past Chinese customs officials was a crisp $100 bill taped to the inside of each container.

“The central government is well aware of the problems but has been unable or unwilling to really address it,” said Smith, senior strategist with the California-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

The European Union bans such exports, but Smith and others say smuggling is rife, largely because of the lack of measures to punish rule breakers. China, meanwhile, allows the import of plastic waste and scrap metal, which many recyclers use as an excuse to send old electronics.

And though U.S. states increasingly require that electronics be sent to collection and recycling centers, even from those centers companies can send the e-waste abroad legally because Congress hasn’t ratified the Basel Convention.

The results are visible on the streets of Guiyu, where the e-waste industry employs an estimated 150,000 people. Shipping containers of computer parts, old video games, computer screens, cell phones and electronics of all kinds, from ancient to nearly new, are dumped onto the streets and sorted for dismantling and melting.

Valuable metals such as copper, gold and silver are removed through melting and acid baths, while steel is torn out for scrap and plastic is ground into pellets for other uses.

In the town of Nanyang, a few minutes’ drive from Guiyu, a middle-aged couple from the inland province of Hunan sorts wiring in a mud-floored shack. Such work, including melting down motherboards, earns them about $100 per month, said the husband, who answered reluctantly and wouldn’t give his name.

Many homes double as smelter. Gas burners shaped like blacksmith forges squat beside the front doors, their flues rising several stories to try to dissipate the toxic smoke.

Nonetheless, a visitor soon develops a throbbing headache and metallic taste in the mouth. The groundwater has long been too polluted for human consumption. The amount of lead in the river sediment is double European safety levels, according to the Basel Action Network.

Yet, aside from trucking in drinking water, the health risks seem largely ignored. Fish are still raised in ponds, and piles of ash and plastic waste sit beside rice paddies and dikes.

Chemicals, including mercury, fluorine, barium, chromium and cobalt, that either leach from the waste or are used in processing, are blamed for skin rashes and respiratory problems. Contamination can take decades to dissipate, experts say, and long-term health effects can include kidney and nervous system damage, weakening of the immune system and cancer.

“Of course, recycling is more environmentally sound,” said Wu Song, a former student who has studied the area. “But I wouldn’t really call what’s happening here recycling.”

Those who control the business in Guiyu are hostile to outside scrutiny. Reporters visiting the area with a Greenpeace volunteer were trailed by tough-looking youths who notified local police, leading to a six-hour detention for questioning.

Government departments refused to answer questions. The central government’s Environmental Protection Agency did not reply to faxed questions.

Guiyu faces growing competition from other cities, notably Taizhou, about 450 miles up the coast in Zhejiang province. Meanwhile, collection yards have sprung up on the fringes of most major cities. Owners sell what they can to recyclers and simply dump the rest.

Efforts to recycle e-waste safely in China have struggled. Few people bring in waste, because the illegal operators pay more.

“We’re not even breaking even,” said Gao Jian, marketing director of New World Solid Waste in the northeastern city of Qingdao. “These guys pay more because they don’t need expensive equipment, but their methods are really dangerous.”

Shanghai opened a dedicated e-waste handling center last year, but most residents and companies prefer the “guerrilla” junkers who ride through neighborhoods on flatbed tricycles ringing bells to attract customers, said Yu Jinbiao of the Shanghai Electronic Products Repair Service Association, a government-backed industry federation.

“Those guerrillas are convenient and offer a good price,” Yu said, “so there is a big market for them.”