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Jean Choi Tiffany Page DS150 Development and the Environment 23 October 2016 Wiki Assignment #5: First Draft

ELECTRONIC WASTE IN CHINA

Electronic waste in China is a serious environmental issue. The amount of electronic waste (e-waste) is increasing due to rising economies like China and India and a higher demand of electronic devices combined with a shorter economic lifespan in the Western world. [1] Though e-waste from the Western world is responsible for a large portion of the e-waste, the biggest threat comes from other regions in the world like India, Thailand, and China itself.[2] Roughly 70% of global e-waste ends up in China.[3]

As a result, China has to deal with the environmental damage and health problems related to the increasing amount of e-waste. Most of these problems arise from the fact that 60% of the e-waste is processed in informal recycling centers by unskilled ill-equipped manual labour.[4]

E-waste

China in 2012 was the world's second largest producer of electronic waste, generating 229.66 million units, compared to the 32.99 million units generated in 2001. [22] This amount is expected to continue rising with China’s economic development, technical innovation, and urbanization. [21]

Large amounts of foreign electronic waste are also imported. Disposal of electronic waste can create jobs and recycle valuable metals but also harm humans and the environment by releasing pollutants. Legislation banning importation and requiring proper disposal of indigenous waste as well as a governmental subsides for proper disposal have recently been introduced but have been criticized as insufficient and susceptible to fraud. There have been local successes, such as the city of Tianjin where 38,000 tonnes were disposed of properly in 2010, but much electronic waste is improperly handled.[5] China receives pollution from both ends of the supply chain: during production process and by allowing electronic waste to be recycled and dumped in the country.[6]

Process of e-waste

By 2000, China was the largest importer of e-waste in the world. E-waste is imported through both illegal and legal channels. [22] Along with waste produced domestically.

The major sources of e-waste processed in China are households, institutional sources (including schools, hospitals, and governmental agencies and businesses), and equipment manufacturers. All e-waste contains heavy metals and organic materials that can be extracted and resold for economic value. These e-wastes are usually channeled through: second-hand markets where reusable devices can be re-sold at reasonable prices, (illegal) donation systems that send used home appliances to poorer rural areas of western China, or through peddlers who re-sell e-wastes to dealers. [22] The third channel is the most common form of e-waste management in China, which creates a massive informal sector.

Given that most of the recycling is done improperly and without the necessary safety precautions, e-waste is directly responsible for deteriorating health and environment in China's east coast.[9] that endanger the environment and the health of e-waste laborers. [21]

In China there is a formal and a strong informal collecting system. The informal collection system called "cherry picking" utilizes only recyclable appliances and sells the reusable pieces to the local second-hand market. Concerning the formal sector there are some collecting projects put in place.[8] (examples???) While there have been centralized efforts to mitigate these risks through formalizing the e-waste management sector, the informal sector still dominates the e-waste collection system.

Furthermore, the process of electric and electronic devices contains many toxic substances and because the processing of e-waste is being done by burning and heating to extract valuable material the health hazards are omnipresent. The toxics that are released during this process are very harmful to a person's health. [9]

Informal sector

The informal sector is constructed of a system of small-scaled, often family-run workshops and “backyard” recycling sectors. [23] It is generally run by peddlers traveling door-to-door offering marginal fees for disposal of obsolescent appliances. These peddlers then resell these devices to e-waste dealers. [22] A main concern around the informal sector is that most peddlers and dealers lack knowledge and access to adequate equipment and technologies for safe e-waste disposal. [22]

The informal recycling method consists mainly of manual, unskilled labor and is inherently mobile. Informal recycling operations also commonly occur in suburban areas where they lack effective enforcement and control. [22] Much of the e-waste is smuggled through illegal channels, often through Hong Kong or Southeast Asia. [27] Therefore, regulations might not be as effective as intended  Nonetheless, it is a very profitable market in China thanks to low wages, high demand for used electronics, used parts and materials.[11] Moreover, this industry "feeds" thousands of families.[9]

Affected regions

The main region where the e-waste is shipped to is the Guangdong province, situated along China's south east coast. From there it is spreading to other regions such as Zhejiang, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hunan, Fujian and Shandong. All of these regions are located along China's entire east coast.[2] E-waste disposal operations frequently occur in the suburban areas, due to the lack of effective enforcement and control. [22]

Regions housing major e-waste recycling sites are hotspots for serious health and environmental risks caused by the toxins released from e-waste disposal.

Song and Li found that residents of major e-waste recycling sites face a potential higher daily intake of heavy metal. [21] Residents are exposed to the hazardous e-waste (remnants, fallout?) though inhalation from air, dietary intake, soil/dust ingestion and skin contact. [21] This has created serious health risks for people in these regions. Special concern has been risen for children, as their potential health risk was measured to be 8 times that for adult e-waste workers due to their smaller size and higher ingestion rate. [21]

Most of China’s informal recycling sectors are limited to regions such as Guiyu, Taizhou, and Qingyuan. [21]

Guiyu Main article: Electronic waste in Guiyu

Guiyu in Guangdong Province is the location of the largest electronic waste site on earth.[7] The town has up to 5,000 workshops treating up to 70 percent of the world’s e-waste, and employing around 100,000 people. The disposal sites recycle 15,000 tons of ewaste on a daily basis. Over 80 per cent of the town’s residents make a living off of manually disassembling and disposing ewaste fulltime [23]

Guiyu’s e-waste workers’ oral average daily dose (ADD) exceed the “safe” oral Pb reference dose. [21] Song and Li also found that the Pb and lead levels in Guiyu’s neonates were significantly higher than a reference group from the region of Chaonan, China.

Taizhou The Taizhou region of the Zhejiang province is also a major e-waste recycling center. Taizhou’s residents are especially vulnerable to the contamination caused by e-waste sector on their equally large agricultural sector. Song an Li measured Taizhou’s dietary intake of heavy metals through rice, vegetable, and water consumption. They found that the average intake of Taizhou residents was 3.7 mg/(day$kg bw), which already exceeded the FAO tolerable daily intake (3.6 mg/day$kg bw). ] Taizhou has been a major site for the pollution of soil and sediment caused by the e-waste sector. [21]

Solutions

Over the past decades, China has made great efforts to advocate better e-waste collection and recycling in both public and private sectors. [22] Since 2002, the Chinese central government has banned the import of e-wastes by launching restrict regulations; however, the illegal import still exists through different channels. [22] ^ details on “local recycling parks in Tianjin, Ticing, Ningbo, Taizhou, and Zhangzhou” ^ details on measures taken in each province?

Attempts to control the informal sector

In the regions of Tianjin, Taicing, Ningbo, Taizhou and Zhangzhou, local recycling parks have been built in which informal laborers still work as manual recyclers, but then under production and pollution management.[12] In Guiyu, a different solution was found. Here, the government promoted technical upgrade in the informal workshops by replacing coal-fired grills with electrical heaters when taking out components from circuit boards.[9] In June 2009, China initiated the ‘‘buy a new one with a used one (old for new policy) policy.” This encouraged the collected of old devices by household appliance sellers. By April 2011, about 46.6 million old home electrical appliances were collected along with the sale of 45 million new ones. This initiative resulted in the rapid growth of the formal waste electronic and electric equipment recycling industry. It reduced e-waste recycling based on private individual collection, and increased collection by formal entities through largescale delivery and rational distribution with a centralized and statistical information system. [22]

International Legislation

Basel Convention

The problem has to be tackled top-down by government and UN-based regulations, like the Basel Convention, to control the processing and transporting of e-waste and to provide environmental and social justice.[13] The United Nations (UN) Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal is the most far-reaching regulation that exists on a global scale to address e-waste. China signed the Basel Convention in 1990. [24] However, the lucrative business that is created by e-waste recycling is responsible for the undermining of this convention in areas where e-waste is transported to.[14] ^ measures taken by the Basel Convention

Chinese legislation

2008, the Ministry of Environmental Protection passed a set of administrative rules requiring all e-waste treatment enterprises to pass an environmental impact assessment and obtain official approval by the local environmental protection bureau before continuing operations. [22]

In 2011, the Collection and Treatment Decree on Wastes of Electric and Electronic Equipment further released the national standards for e-waste treatment business, requiring that a qualified e-waste treatment enterprise setting minimum annual treatment capacities depending on the region they operate in. Additionally, the ‘‘Circular Economy Promotion’’, ‘‘Solid Waste Pollution Control’’ and ‘‘Clean Production Promotion’’ laws were passed to require that pollution prevention principles should be adopted during the whole lifecycle of e-waste management so that negative environmental impacts can be minimized. [22]

Nevertheless, laws and regulations put in place by the Chinese government lack of adequate resources to enforce them. Moreover, the financial windfall associated with e-waste makes these laws and regulations weak.[13]

In 2008, The Chinese State Council also mandated the recycling of electronics by the consumer and required the recycling of unnecessary materials discarded in the manufacturing process. [15]

The Management Regulations for Recycling and Disposing of Consumer Electronics and Electronic Waste, intended to be effective January 1, 2011, bans import of toxic e-waste, requires treatment of e-wastes to have license, and treatment plants to treat pollution .[16]

One of the most successful policies is probably the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR makes manufacturers responsible for electronics collection and recycling. Therefore, the producer is more involved in the life cycle of a product.[11] The administrative Measure on Tax Levy and Use for E-waste Recycling was implemented on July 1, 2012, putting China’s EPR into effect. General rules, tax administration, subsidy utilization, supervision, legal liability and supplemental rules were set in place. On the whole, the actual amount of e-wastes recycled by formal channels is going up rapidly each year. [23]

China also has economic incentives to comply to international e-waste management standards. China exports approximately 70% of all of their electronic products to countries registered with the EU. By failing to comply with the EU WEEE (Waste Electrical Electronic Equipment) Directive, China can risk losing 30-50% of its export profit. [25]

Provincial Chinese programs

There are different examples in the region of Qingdao, Beijing and the Sichuan provinces, where the current projects are developed.[8]

A big issue can be found in the Sichuan Province, close to the Tibetan border, where people had a habit of throwing waste in rivers and nature. Local leaders, among others monks and village representatives, decided to call for help from Norlha to design a region specific program. Monks have been informed about the proper way to dispose of (e-)waste, which they could pass through in religious celebrations. At the same time posters have been handed out to the communities and children have been informed by the NGO in their schools. Moreover, in 5 villages waste collections systems and storage points for e-waste have been created.[17] Another project is the "Home Appliance Old for New Rebate Program", which was first launched in nine cities and provinces who are considered as economically developed regions. It is a recycling system, where only accredited collectors who usually work in the retail industry can collect and take back old appliances from consumers and reward these actions with discount coupons. Since only authorized collectors were participating in the process, it gives the possibility to pay the consumers a higher price for their e-waste[8]

Corporate initiatives

In order to establish normative e-waste recycling network, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) designated Qingdao Haier, Hangzhou Dadi, Beijing Huaxing, and other companies, as the national e-waste collection and recycling pilot projects in 2004. These projects, along with the United Nations Environment Program were a failure due to the fact that they could not get adequate e-waste collected for efficient operations. [22]

Many companies, like Nintendo, are aware of the problem of e-waste and are developing their own initiatives. Companies joined forces by creating a collective e-waste reclamation campaign. But that does not solve the whole problem.[11]

China Mobile, Motorola, and Nokia cooperated in launching a recycling program where they look back used cellphones and electronic accessories. This “take-back,” or “Green Box” program safely collected about 20 tons of e-waste by 2009. [26]

In response to low incentives some companies, like Dell, started to provide compensations to consumers in Beijing and Shanghai of US$0.15 for 1 kg of old computer. In order to receive the incentive consumers had to bring their used computers to local Dell stores at their own expense. The project failed because the financial gains of returning their computer to formal recyclers were lower than the gains from selling computers to informal collectors.[11] Together with China Mobile and Motorola, Nokia launched a take-back program ‘Green Box’ programto collect obsolete mobile phones and accessories in December 2005 [29].

Legislative inadequacies

Even though legislation and regulations have been accepted by the developed countries against illegal exportation of e-waste, the high number of illegal shipments is contributing to the bad situation of e-waste in China.[18] For instance, the members of the EU agreed not to transport any waste subject to the Basel Convention out of the EU or the OECD but illegal shipments are still rising in China and other developing countries.[19] Greenpeace International claims that a large amount of e-waste is usually illegally shipped from Europe, the U.S. and Japan to China. One of the main incentives for them to export e-waste is that the cost of domestic e-waste disposal is higher than the exportation fees. [20] Moreover, e-waste brokers make large profits from the trade and get paid twice: once for acquiring the e-waste, once for shipping it. [13]

In China, informal collectors buy old electronic devices from consumers. The incentive to participate in collection systems, which cost them compared to informal recycling, is low, even though many Chinese consumers realize that it is important to recycle e-waste safely. [11] As many as 90% of the consumers are reluctant to pay for e-waste recycling because there is still monetary value in the end-life of products. [2]

However, the lucrative business that is created by e-waste recycling is responsible for the undermining of this convention in areas where e-waste is transported to. [14]

[21] Song, Qingbin, and Jinhui Li. "A Review on Human Health Consequences of Metals 	Exposure to E-waste in China." Environmental Pollution 196 (2015): 450-61.

[22] Lu, Chenyu, Lin Zhang, Yongguang Zhong, Wanxia Ren, Mario Tobias, Zhilin Mu, 	Zhixiao Ma, Yong Geng, and Bing Xue. "An Overview of E-waste Management in 	China." Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management 17.1 (2014): 1-12.

[23] Cao, Jian, Bo Lu, Yangyang Chen, Xuemei Zhang, Guangshu Zhai, Gengui Zhou, Boxin 	Jiang, and Jerald L. Schnoor. "Extended Producer Responsibility System in China 	Improves E-waste Recycling: Government Policies, Enterprise, and Public 	Awareness." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 62 (2016): 882-94.

[24] Siu, Tyrone. "World's Largest Electronics Waste Dump in China." World's Largest 	Electronics Waste Dump in China. 6 July 2015.

[25] Hicks, C., R. Dietmar, and M. Eugster. "The Recycling and Disposal of Electrical and 	Electronic Waste in China - legislative and Market Responses." Environmental Impact 	Assessment Review 25.5 (2005): 459-71.

[26] Wei, Lin, and Yangsheng Liu. "Present Status of E-waste Disposal and Recycling in China." Procedia Environmental Sciences 16 (2012): 506-14.

[27] Ni, Hong-Gang, and Eddy Y. Zeng. "Law Enforcement and Global Collaboration Are the 	Keys to Containing E-Waste Tsunami in China." Environmental Science & 	Technology Environ. Sci. Technol. 43.11 (2009): 3991-994.