EXPORTING ELECTRONIC WASTE TO THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: WHAT IS THE TRUE COST OF AMERICAN RECYCLING?

by Eric J. Kilgore

When the children in the towns of Taizhou and Guiyu China go out to play, they stumble through the ashes of toxic electronic waste, pass fires of burning PVC and plastic, and must wade through piles of computer circuit boards to reach their destination. When their mothers go to get water for the household needs, it is often from streams filled inches deep with broken glass and toxic chemical dust from broken computer monitors dumped into the local waterway.  They are not alone. This scene is also played out daily in small towns in Pakistan, India, and Nigeria. As these atrocities occur, most Americans do not think twice about what actually happens to their obsolete computers and stereos dropped off at the local recycling center.  Most never consider its final destination.  "Eighty percent of the consumer electronics ostensibly recycled through local organizations is headed for one of the most impoverished villages in the world, welcomed by the population because disposal of the Western waste provides income and work for the local residents." (Krotoski, 2005).

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality estimated in mid-2004, that by the end of 2004, there would be 314 million computers thrown away, in America alone, containing a total of:

• 1.2 billion pounds of lead.
• 2 million pounds of cadmium.
• 1.2 million pounds of hexavalent chromium.
• 400,000 pounds of mercury. (Meyer, El Ella, et. al., 2004)

 Many individuals and organizations try to apply the three R's of the recycling industry—reduce, re-use, and recycle, but it does not usually work in a manner beneficial to everyone.  Many businesses realize that they can get tax breaks by donating used computer equipment to charitable organizations and schools, but too often the computers have obsolesced too long or become too costly for the recipients of the donated equipment to dispose of properly.  If it were not for the precious metals often used in the manufacture of circuit boards (i.e. gold, palladium, silver, and platinum), obsolete computers would have almost no recycle value at all.

The biggest dilemma seems to stem from those that wish to "do the right thing" and recycle. Due to state and federal environmental laws, the cost of properly disposing of e-waste can become quite burdensome.  Citizens do not want to pay a fee to recycle their computer that could be put out to the curbside without cost.  Many American recycling companies have found that it is much cheaper to send computer components overseas to Third World nations to be dismantled than to dispose of the components properly and safely stateside. "A pilot program conducted by the US EPA that collected electronic scrap in San Jose, CA estimated that it was 10 times cheaper to ship CRT monitors to China than it was to recycle them in the US."  (Basel Action Network, 2002, p.12). It is for this reason a small and poor rice-producing village in China, Guiyu, has become a booming e-waste processing center.

Old computers shipped to China for disposal arrive by ship.  The recycling company's agents immediately "skim off the top" any component that is easily repaired or re-sellable in its present state.  The remaining scrap is then shipped to a village like Guiyu for dismantling.  The computer components are disassembled into various piles according to their type (circuit boards, metal chassis, etc.) and distributed throughout the community for further disassembly. 

Circuit boards are heated over an open flame, when the solder heats, the chips are quickly pulled from the boards with pliers.  The solder is collected for later resale, but the women and young girls performing this task are not protected from the inhalation of the tin and lead fumes from the smoldering solder. The chips from the circuit boards are sent to other workers that rinse them in a heated mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid to strip off the minute amounts of precious metals that are contained on the chips.  After the metals are removed the sludge from the bottom of the acid bath tubs are often dumped directly into the nearest waterway.  The local waterways have become so polluted that "drinking water is routinely transported to Guiyu from Ninjing due to severe groundwater pollution." (Basel Action Network, 2002, p.15). Ninjing is about 30 kilometers (18 miles) away.

Plastic components are melted and then ground into chips by workers that are probably unaware of the BFRs contained in the plastic that is most likely releasing dioxins into the air.  No respirators are provided to these workers as a precautionary measure. The plastic chips are then sorted by the elderly and children to remove any pieces that seem too discolored. 

Every component that can be dismantled for the slightest scrap value is dismantled.  Wiring from inside the discarded devices is sorted into piles and burned out in the open air releasing dioxins from the BFRs and PVC used to coat them.  The workers then sift through the toxic ashes to retrieve the copper from the wiring.  Cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors are routinely smashed with hammers to remove their copper yokes at the back of the picture tube.  The rest of the monitor is usually discarded to be buried later.  CRT monitors contain vast amounts of lead.  A toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) of 5mg/l of lead is considered toxic. A color computer monitor has a TCLP of 18.5 mg/l of lead. (Meyer, El Ella, et. al., 2004).  Burying CRTs is illegal in several states in the US because of the likelihood that the toxic chemicals and heavy metals contained in them will be leached into the soil and pollute the soil and possibly the groundwater beneath.

In Guiyu "scores of small children play among the ash heaps. Drinking, cooking, and washing is done with local ash-contaminated surface waters.  Additionally, the village lies adjacent to two fish ponds which provide the villagers with their food and protein supply." (Basel Action Network, 2002, p.18).   These Chinese villagers laboring in these conditions are compensated about $1.50 per day for their work at the expense of their environment. "Soil, groundwater, and surface water contamination at these sites has been found to be as much as 200 times the World Health Organization's standards." (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2006, p. 316). 

European Union nations have banned cross-border trade in e-waste.  These nations are instituting the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) acts. WEEE requires manufacturers to pay for disposing of obsolete products they manufactured, and RoHS bans the use of certain toxic chemicals in their manufacturing processes. Many of these nations also belong to the Basel Convention which was established in 1999 to address the worldwide problems caused by e-waste. The US has, to date, not ratified the Basel Convention.

"There is little likelihood that there will be any forthcoming change in US policy though, because domestic recycling legislation currently sits at the state-level, while international trade operates federally." (Krotoski, 2005). American legislators are currently much busier addressing issues of dumping e-waste in local landfills than they are addressing the problem of exportation of this waste to Third World nations.

What can be done to alleviate this problem?  TCO of Sweden and Blue Angel of Germany are two organizations that offer certifications to manufacturers of "green computing" equipment.  To gain there certification, manufacturers must show that there manufacturing processes have minimal impact on the environment, reduce impact on their climate, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and conserve resources. As Leslie Byster stated in her paper presented at the Waste Not Asia Conference in July, 2001, "The same entrepreneurs and companies that benefit from the technological revolution have failed to apply their brilliance and resources to find the solution for the rapidly growing waste piles."

Bibliography

• Basel Action Network. (2002). Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia. Seattle: Basel Action Network.
• Byster, L. (2001, July). Poison PC's: The Growing Environmental Problem. Presented at the Waste Not Asia Conference.  Retrieved from http://www.no-burn.org/regional/pdf/poisonpcs.pdf on April 23, 2006
• Cunningham, W. &. Cunningham, M. (2006). Principles of Environmental Science Inquiry & Applications (Third Edition). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
• Meyer, M., El Ella. (2004, July). Disposal of Old Computer Equipment:  A Mounting Environmental Problem. The CPA Journal, 74(7), 70-74. Retreived from WilsonSelect database on April 23. 2006
• Krotoski, A. (2005, 24 February). Made in Taiwan.  Buried In China. Technology Review. Retrieved from www.techreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=infotech&sc=&id=14203&pg=1. on April 23, 2006.

Eric Kilgore is the Owner of Mobile IT Solutions. He has several Microsoft Certified Professional certifiactions from Microsoft, as well as other industry certifications.  This article was originally submitted (by Eric) for an Environmental Science class at Baker College in 2007.