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IT
revolution's dirty secret: E-waste
exports
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY -
Children as young as seven or eight handle hazardous
chemicals in electronic trash heaps scattered throughout
Asia that are being touted by more advanced countries as
recycling success stories, according to probes by
environmental groups.
In one Chinese community
alone, 100,000 people scavenge each day in a huge mound
of computer circuit boards, extracting cathode ray tubes
and burning plastic components that leak toxic acids and
heavy metals into stagnant water systems.
Yet
most of the redundant personal computers (PCs) and
printers were sent there to be dismantled in legitimate
export transactions that environmental watchdogs believe
are being used as cop-outs by technology firms and their
governments.
"Rather than having to face the
[disposal] problem squarely, the United States and other
rich economies that use most of the world's electronic
products and generate most of the e-waste have made use
of a convenient, and until now, hidden escape valve:
exporting the e-waste crisis to the developing countries
of Asia," Basel Action Network (BAN) and Silicon Valley
Toxics Coalition (SVTC) reported in one study.
"The export of e-waste remains a dirty little
secret of the high-tech revolution."
Toxic
dumping has been occurring in the Third World for
decades, as impoverished Asians eke out a basic living
from cleaning up an unwanted stockpile of batteries, old
tires and rusting ship hulks.
But no one was
prepared for the regulatory difficulties presented by
the information age, which has spawned industries that
produce unprecedented quantities of rubbish but are
ill-equipped to cope with its safe disposal.
One
reason is the breakneck speed of obsolescence: where TVs
and other electronic equipment can often last 10 years
or more, computers are often redundant in two. By 2005,
one PC is expected to be discarded for every new one put
on the market.
In the United States alone, an
estimated 40,000 PCs are thrown away each year, and
there are believed to be a further 300 million to 700
million abandoned units ferreted away in households and
businesses that are waiting to be dumped.
Strict
domestic laws in Europe and North America prohibit the
disposal of toxic waste in landfills, while recycling
operations are too expensive. Exporting to Asia has
become the easy option. On average, about 25 percent of
PCs are collected for recycling, and 80 percent of these
find their way to plants in the developing world, mostly
in China, India and Pakistan.
Scrap merchants
extract a plethora of precious metals from shipments,
including gold, platinum, silver, copper and palladium.
A trader breaking up a single motherboard can extract
US$2 worth of metals; but he may still lose out.
"Although it is hardly well known, e-waste
contains a witches' brew of toxic substances such as
lead and cadmium ... mercury ... and polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) cable insulation that releases highly toxic
dioxins and furans when burned to retrieve copper from
the wires," the BAN-SVTC report warned. "The health and
economic costs of this trade are vast and, due to
export, are not born by the Western consumers nor the
waste brokers who benefit from the trade."
There
are four related global conventions and protocols that
collectively were designed to ensure the safe disposal
of toxic materials and prevent indiscriminate dumping in
the Third World. But none has attracted enough backing
to be formally enacted: another 25 ratifications are
needed for the Basel Convention and an attached
amendment, 10 for the London Protocol, seven for the
Rotterdam Convention and 16 for the Stockholm
Convention.
The US has not signed any of them,
and heads a list of Western countries and business
groupings that are specifically campaigning against the
Basel Convention and its amendment. Others in this camp
are Australia, Canada, the International Council on
Metals and the Environment (ICME), the International
Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the United Nations Center
for Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Since it was
drawn up in 1989 and amended in 1995, Basel has been
widely castigated because it permits advanced countries
belonging to the Organization of Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) to decide which hazardous
materials they consider safe for export.
Non-signatories have argued that this degree of
flexibility would impose unacceptable constraints on
free trade, and would especially compromise the position
of importing countries. They also contend that the
convention does not offer a viable long-term solution to
disposal problems.
"The export ban denies
importing countries equipped with the capacity to manage
wastes in an environmentally sound manner the right to
determine their recycling policy and what they wish to
import," said the BAN-SVTC report. "On the contrary, these countries should be
authorized to have access to resources needed to further
develop their recycling abilities and their economies."
Few of the Asian countries that are taking in
the waste have ratified the conventions either.
Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Singapore, South
Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines have
abstained, and Japan has signed only one.
China
has ratified the complete Basel package, and last month
began to ban imported products that contain six heavy
metals and toxic chemicals, with a specific watch on
communications equipment, computers, computer
accessories, meters and electronic instruments. As a
model, Beijing adopted guidelines that were approved by
European Union members in February for the phasing out
of the same six substances - including mercury, lead and
cadmium - from electronic goods by July 2006.
But like most of the Third World, China lacks a
legal framework capable of enforcing the embargo, while
it could also be liable for retaliatory action under
World Trade Organization rules if it tries to
unilaterally keep imports out on strictly environmental
grounds.
Greenpeace, the global environmental
watchdog, has alleged that electronics groups in Europe
and Australia are making use of the regulatory vacuum by
shipping materials that are not even legal under their
own countries' laws.
"Equally to blame are the
exporters and exporting-country governments which seek
to exploit the limitations in the ... regulatory
infrastructure to export their environmental
liabilities," Greenpeace Asia campaigner Nityanand
Jayaraman noted after a probe of dumping practices in
India.
Many governments view toxic imports as a
valued revenue stream and are loath to interfere in
recycling activities that keep tens of thousands of
unskilled workers in steady employment.
The
Philippines allows the importing of hazardous materials
for recycling or reprocessing despite having ratified
the original Basel Convention in 1992 - though not its
later amendment. Many of these shipments come from
neighboring countries such as Singapore and Thailand,
presenting another potential obstacle, this time a
diplomatic one, as Asia scouts its own dumping grounds
for unwanted goods.
Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan
have been named by environmentalists as other prime
offenders, though they could all be eclipsed eventually
by China.
Yet some countries are starting to
take a tougher line as the social fallout from recycling
becomes more apparent, even tackling the problem at its
source by forcing the electronics industry to take
charge of cleaning up its own mess.
In May,
Indian authorities returned 300 tons of waste material
contaminated with mercury to the US and demanded that
the consumer-goods firm responsible clean up the factory
site where it was abandoned. The company has agreed to
comply.
Clarification: Maria Isolda P Guevara wishes it to be known that she/he is not the author of the BAN article cited above, and was not a legal advisor for the International Council on Metals and the Environment. This article has been amended to reflect this.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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