U.S. high-tech waste triggers crisis in China

By CRAIG SIMONS The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Along Guiyu's narrow streets, high-tech junk — some of it illegally imported from the United States — is piled into towering mounds. Nearby, workers break apart computers to strip out computer chips. They dip the pieces into acid baths to remove metals, including gold and lead, that can be resold.

Often the toxic remains are dumped in local rivers or burned, increasing health and environmental problems, locals and experts say.

Several studies have found that workers and residents suffer from maladies including cancer and respiratory diseases. A recent government report found that more than 80 percent of the children in this city of 133,000 suffer from lead poisoning.

In December, Dell became the first computer company to offer free recycling to individual customers worldwide and, for a $25 service fee per computer, to institutional and corporate clients in most major markets.

In 2005, the Round Rock, Texas-based company pledged to remove all brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride, chemicals that have been linked to neurological problems and cancer, from products by 2009.

Hewlett-Packard took a similar approach when it held a series of events in seven states last summer to raise awareness about the importance of recycling electronic waste.

Globally, 20 million to 50 million tons of electronic devices are disposed of annually, said Beijing-based Greenpeace toxics campaigner Jamie Choi.

Dealing with the trash has created an environmental nightmare.

Computers contain hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals. A 2004 report by the Computer TakeBack Campaign, a coalition of environmental groups, found that consumer electronics "constitute 40 percent of lead ... [and] about 70 percent of the heavy metals" found in landfills.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generated 2.6 million tons of electronic waste in 2005, the latest available data, 7.8 percent more than in 2004. Of that amount, only 12.5 percent was recycled, according to the agency.

Much more electronic waste is stored in basements and attics, said Robin Schneider, executive director of Austin-based Texas Campaign for the Environment. "It's so common that people have home electronic waste in their households that they don't know what to do with," she said.

Guiyu provides a case study of the problems of letting the market determine the fate of electronic waste.

Last year the town processed 1.5 million tons of e-waste, making it the largest "electronic waste recycler" in China, said Mayor Chen Xishi.

The trade accounts for 90 percent of the local economy and is growing, he said.

A large part of the business is fueled by imported electronic trash.

While China bans the import of electronic waste, "the laws are not well enforced," Greenpeace campaigner Choi said, adding that brokers sometimes tape $100 bills to incoming containers of waste to bribe customs officials.

A Chinese government report released last year found that 70 percent of globally traded electronic waste entered China.

The United States is particularly responsible for the damage because it is the world's only developed nation that has not ratified the Basel Convention, a U.N. treaty created in 1989 that bans the export of electronic and other hazardous waste to developing countries, said Sarah Westervelt, a researcher for Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization working to stop international trade in toxic wastes.

"The U.S. is not monitoring or controlling its exports [of electronic waste], so you have recyclers and businesses in the United States who are free to load up containers of toxic materials ... with no monitoring of where it goes or what is done with it," she said.

The impact of the trade on Guiyu's environment and human health has been easier to gauge.

While Guiyu's economy has relied on recycling since the 1960s, the environmental impacts of the pollution have become more visible in recent years, locals and experts said.

More than 5,000 small companies process electronic waste and many workers dump toxic by-products into local rivers. A 2005 study by Greenpeace found that levels of copper, lead, tin, nickel and cadmium in "discharge channels" funneling into a local river were "between 400 and 600 times higher than would be expected for uncontaminated river sediments."

The pollution has led to serious health problems. Tests show that residents had abnormally high concentrations of cadmium in their blood, said Huo Xia, a professor of medicine at Shantou University.

Because of lead poisoning "children who grow up in Guiyu are likely to suffer lower cognitive abilities and a lack of concentration," Huo said.

Workers in Guiyu often handle disassembled electronic devices without protective clothing and are likely to suffer high rates of cancer and respiratory disease, she said.