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Hazardous industry proving difficult to rectify

By Tu Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-23 07:44

Piles of discarded computer monitors sit scattered along the roadsides, abandoned computers lie hidden in sheets or clothes, kids chase after each other with computer mice in hand and people drive tricycles loaded with used printers or keyboards. This is Houbajia village (or e-waste village) in Beijing, three kilometers from Zhongguancun, Beijing's technology hub.

Villagers here started collecting used electronics from Beijing's streets and lanes 13 years ago and the place has since become the capital's biggest e-waste distribution center.

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Hu Zhong, 58, from Henan province, has lived here for five years. He drives a tricycle every day around Deshengmen, to the north of the Second Ring Road, to purchase second-hand computers, mobile phones or TVs, and sells them to villagers at a higher price.

Hu is the first line of the e-waste industry chain, the waste collector. E-waste collection in the village amounts to 40 or 50 tons a day, and half of the residents here work in the field, according to a report from Beijing Youth Daily.

In the village, the labor division is clear. Newcomers operate solo and those who have worked for some time or have money can rent storage space to hold material for others. Some of them target computer monitors, some printers and others hard disks.

Guan Haibin, 39, started to collect used electrical appliances 10 years ago in the village; now, he is a printer wholesaler.

"We have experienced workers to check which electronics can be recycled and then we sell them to businesses in Beijing or other counties," he said.

"The price for a recycled printer is less than one tenth of the new one," said Guan.

But he wouldn't say how much profit he makes.

"If the appliance can't be used any more, its shell and steel can be sold by weight. Gold can be extracted from a computer's main board," said Guan.

After picking up waste with possible value, traders come back to the market to package the waste and transport it south in one of the trucks lining the village streets. If there are enough goods, at least one truck will leave here a day. Major distribution centers include Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hebei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, according to Greenpeace. Guangdong and Zhejiang are the top destinations.

The city of Guiyu, in Southern Guangdong, is home to 5,500 businesses devoted to processing discarded electronics. According to the local government website, the region dismantles 1.5 million tons of junked computers, cell phones, plastics and other devices a year and the e-waste business generated 1.56 billion yuan for the town in 2007.

The profit is attractive but much of the waste from the work is dumped into the city's streams and canals, poisoning the wells and groundwater. Circuit boards, which can contain tiny amounts of gold and silver, are treated with acid baths. Guiyu has no agriculture.

"I have been to Guiyu, but I will never go there again," said Beijing's Guan, "the smell is terrible even miles away."

Greenpeace reports say 80 percent of Guiyu's children suffer from respiratory disease, and a report from nearby Shantou University said Guiyu has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world and an elevated rate of miscarriages.

"Guiyu was the earliest and biggest e-waste dismantling place in China. They are dealing with 21st century waste via 19th century technology," said Lai Yun, Toxics Campaign director of Greenpeace China.

Not all the e-waste comes from the domestic market. According to a report jointly released by US environmental groups Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and Greenpeace in China, 50 to 80 percent of e-waste from the United States is shipped to India, China and Pakistan via containers. Most of the containers (up to 90 percent) end up in China.

Every day, Americans throw out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, according Time Magazine.

The United States is the only industrialized country that refused to ratify the 19-year-old Basel Convention, an international treaty designed to regulate the export of hazardous waste to developing nations, said Time.

E-waste recalling

Hanjiachuan is Beijing's first e-waste sorting center. It was launched last year but is struggling to stay afloat due to a lack of governmental funds, fierce competition from private channels that do not adhere to environmental standards and residents, accustomed to selling the waste to peddlers , who are slow to accept this newer professional sorting model.

The 2,400-square-meter sorting center mainly takes in discarded office equipment including computers, fax machines and printers from government groups, schools and businesses in Beijing's Haidian district (where hi-tech hub Zhongguancun is located).

The sorting center has five of the latest electrical waste sorting machines. The equipment can sort everything from mobile phones to CPUs and can handle about 12,000 tons a year. The center has 12 workers.

But the center has received no subsidy from the government since an initial 4 million yuan from the municipality and 1 million yuan from the district. A Beijing resident, who lives in Xuanwu district and is only identified as Zhang, said her first reaction to disposing of her 20-year-old TV is to sell it to peddlers. "I do not know how to give it to the sorting center," she said.

The amount of discarded waste in Beijing will increase to 158,300 tons in 2010, accounting for 10 percent of domestic e-waste, according to figures from the Beijing branch of the Chinese Academy of Social Science.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that China has discarded 5 million TV sets, 4 million refrigerators and 5 million washing machines each year since 2003. The bureau does not have statistics for computers and mobile phones but they are general replaced more frequently than home appliances.

Rules come

This March the State Council, or China's Cabinet, formally released rules for the management of e-waste in the country at the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The rules, which come into effect on Jan 1, 2011, specify that the nation will set up a special fund to subsidize the costs of dealing with e-waste. Manufacturers, consignees of imported electronics products or their agents are required to contribute to the fund. The Ministry of the Environmental Protection will be supervise the fund.

Greenpeace's Lai Yun said the new rules are a big step for China in dealing with e-waste, but he worries about some of details. Rule 23 of Chapter 3, for example, says those applying for dismantling the waste requires sophisticated electrical equipments and professional workers but gives no detail on what kind of technology is required.

Dealing with waste electronics is not a matter of simply dismantling them and requires a substantial amount of funding and government support, said Han Qingjie, board chairman of Qingdao New World Eco-Industrial Park (Vein Industry), which deals with industrial waste.

"We are still waiting for the rules' details, especially on tax preferences," said Han.