Green Groups Denounce Toxic E-Waste Dumping In Asia

SEOUL, Korea, June 24, 2004 – Environmental activists from various Asian countries today denounced the continuing dumping of electronic scrap in the region from industrialized countries like the US, Japan and South Korea, stressing that the illegal trade not only contravenes the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, but also allows electronic manufacturers to evade their responsibilities over the ultimate fate of the products they put out in the market.

Recent investigations by environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Basel Action Network (BAN), Toxics Link (India), and the Korea Zero Waste Movement Network (KZWMN) confirm that significant quantities of highly polluting hazardous electronic waste still continue to pour into China, the Philippines and India illegally. In the case of China, the forbidden toxic electronic waste is mixed in with the massive amounts of scrap imports now entering the country from Japan and South Korea.The findings follow a joint field investigation conducted by the environmentalists in the scrap-processing region of Taizhou, this February.

The discovery of the widespread informal and dirty recycling activities in Taizhou, India and the Philippines also confirms that the electronic waste dumping problem now extends far beyond Guiyu, in Guangdong province, China which BAN, Greenpeace and other organizations revealed in 2002 as a major North American e-waste dumping zone.

The activists, who are now in Seoul for the Waste Not Asia [1] meeting organized by the KZWMN and the Global Anti- Incinerator Alliance (GAIA), called on the governments of the US, Japan and South Korea to strictly control their toxic exports rather than expect poor Asian countries to be able to cope with the massive environmental liabilities involved in the dismantling and recycling of electronic scrap.

They also appealed to the global manufacturers of electronic products and appliances to practice Extended Producer Responsibility or EPR and assume the liabilities associated with the final fate of their products, citing recent developments in the European Union where the same companies are now being required to phase-out a number of hazardous substances in electronic products and take back their discarded products for recycling. [2]

”It is ironic that these electronic discards are being collected in industrialized countries for the purpose of dumping them on poor nations. It has become clear with these recent trends that the developing economies of Asia continue to be the biggest dustbin for hazardous waste and toxic technologies coming from rich countries” said Greenpeace campaigner Von Hernandez.

The importation of hazardous waste into China, India and the Philippines has been forbidden by national laws in these countries for several years and goes against the intent of the Basel Convention™s ban on the export of toxic waste from OECD to non-OECD countries even for recycling purposes. However, despite these prohibitions, the environmentalists found that electronic wastes were still arriving for example into China mixed into the steel and copper scrap off-loaded 24 hours a day from bulkloader vessels arriving from Korea and Japan in the port of Taizhou.[3]

According to KZWMN coordinator Hong Su-Yol, “It is estimated that South Korea exports about 1.8 million used computers to China a year, providing a convenient escape hatch for Korean computer manufacturers to avoid paying for steep recycling and disposal costs in Korea.”

The activists however, lauded the recent decision by Korean electronics giant Samsung to phase out hazardous chemicals used in its consumer electronic products.  Samsung's decision was prompted by Greenpeace, which tested a wide range of consumer products and found phthalates, brominated flame retardants, synthetic musks, alkylphenols and organotin compounds in most of the products tested, including in a Samsung mobile phone and television. Samsung has also committed to seek substitutes for the hazardous chemicals that it currently uses, supporting innovation of new, cleaner chemicals.[4]

NOTES
(1) More than 150 activists from 14 countries are now in Seoul for the 2004 Waste Not Asia conference. Waste Not Asia is the Asian node of the Global Anti-Incineration Alliance (GAIA), an international coalition of environmental groups campaigning against dirty and destructive waste disposal practices, and promoting sustainable and ecological waste management alternatives.

(2) In January 2003, the European Union adopted two directives: The Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS). Over 90% of electronic scrap goes to incinerators and landfills creating hazardous emissions, instead of being reused or recycled. The WEEE and RoHS Directives aim to substantially reduce the amount of electronic scrap entering incinerators and landfills and to eliminate the hazardous substances these products contain (e.g. lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, and certain brominated flame retardants) by July 2006. The Directives cover a broad range of electronic products ranging from computers to hair dryers, refrigerators, and electronic toys.

(3) The smuggled hazardous wastes into China, included computers, electronic appliances and transformer carcasses. Most of this waste gets processed in Taizhou itself in the many large- scale dismantling yards where thousands of laborers sit all day wielding chisel and hammer, breaking down the electronic equipment. However even this formal recycling sector, was found to be routinely engaged in highly polluting activities such as the open burning of motors, wires etc. to liberate the metals from plastic insulation or housings. Further, a survey of nearby rural areas around Taizhou revealed that hundreds and perhaps thousands of farmers are now engaged in primitive and highly polluting electronic waste recycling operations which involved open cooking of circuit boards, shredding and primitive smelting operations. These small-scale operators are very easy to locate due to the acrid smell of melting solder that now hangs over the once fresh farmland.


[4] Greenpeace database of hazardous chemicals in products at:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Products/Toxics/chemicalhouse.cfm

For Samsung's Chemicals Control Program, download document:
http://www.samsung.co.uk/SEUK/images/Editorials/Position%20paper_0604.pdf

For more information, please contact:
Von Hernandez, Greenpeace: Mobile phone (+63-9175263050)
Hong, Su-Yol, Korea Zero Waste Movement Network:
         Mobile phone (+82-195709244)