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Exporting Hazardous Waste
The Problem with Exporting Electronic Waste
Many recyclers can make more money by sending e-waste to developing countries for disassembly and processing. Most of it is sent to developing countries, like China, India, Pakistan, where workers make only pennies an hour.
Due to horrific working conditions and weak labor standards in many of the developing countries where e-waste is sent, women and children are often directly exposed to lead and other hazardous materials when dismantling the electronic products to recover valuable parts for resell. Workers in Guiyu, China - an area where a lot of e-waste "recycling" occurs, disassemble the products and throw the unwanted (but very hazardous) leaded glass into former irrigation ditches, and dump pure acids and dissolved heavy metals directly into their rivers. Piles of wires are burned in open fires, creating dioxins and furans.
In 2001, the Basel Action Network lead several groups in an investigation of e-waste processing in China, India, and Pakistan. The investigation uncovered an entire area known as Guiyu in Guangdong Province, surrounding the Lianjiang River just 4 hours drive northeast of Hong Kong where about 100,000 poor migrant workers are employed breaking apart and processing obsolete computers imported primarily from North America. The workers were found to be using 19th century technologies to clean up the wastes from the 21st century.
E-waste processing in Guiyu, China, happens very close to residential areas, exposing the community to harmful toxic chemicals. (Photo Copyright: Basel Action Network)
Investigator from Basel Action Network taking a soil sample along riverside where circuit boards were treated with acid and burned openly in Guiyu, China. Massive amounts of dumping of imported computer waste takes place along the riverways. (Photo Copyright: Basel Action Network)
| Link to the report "Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia, by the Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.
Link to the report "Digital Dump - Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa."
Link to trailer of the film "Digital Dump."
Purchase the films on export to Asia and Africa.
Link to article "Developing countries are awash in e-waste", San Francisco Chronicle (March 30, 2007)
Link to article "Where Computers Go to Die - They Kill", Salon (April 10,2006)
Link to article "Firms Starting to Stem Wave of Toxic Tech Junk", Austin American Statesman(March 05, 2007)
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How much e-waste do we export each year?
We export enough e-waste each year to fill 5126 shipping containers (40 ft x 8.5 ft). If you stacked them up, they'd reach 8 miles high - higher than Mt Everest, or commercial flights.
Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa
In 2005, BAN produced a film and report on e-waste export to Africa, for the reuse market, called "Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa." This shocking film shows how a large quantity of the computers exported to Lagos, Nigeria supposedly for reuse are really mostly non-working, non-repairable trash. With no real electronics recycling infrastructure, Lagos ends up burning these toxics-laden products in open pits, very close to residential areas.
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