Traveling through Beijing can be exhausting, especially when you are not used to large crowds. Metro stops, bus lines and connecting passages are floated with people making their way through the city. Yet, these masses seem to leave no trace of their existence on the streets of Beijing which are remarkably clean, compared to Beijing’s dirty image in the world, and characterized by a lack of lingering rubbish.
The reason is not that the citizens of Beijing are more environmental conscience when it comes to littering on the streets – but the existence of a very effective trash collection system that thrives due to the high wage competitiveness of the Chinese economy. The official waste collection system is aided by thousands of informal waste collectors, i.e. mainly old men on tricycles, that sweep the streets looking for rubbish that can be recycled. Everything - be it an empty soda can or yesterday’s newspaper - is gathered and brought to collection points where it is exchanged for small amounts of cash.
Of particular interest is the collection of electronic waste (e-waste) that renders higher payments because it contains precious materials such as gold and copper. Recycling e-waste, however, is also challenging because the different parts of electronic devices contain a variety of toxic materials such as lead and mercury. When not done in a safe manner, the recycling of e-waste can cause serious damage to the environment and human health. Unfortunately, safe recycling is also more expensive which has led to the flourishing of an illegal recycling industry that pays little attention to environmental standards.
Guiyu - a small town in the Eastern Guangdong province - is by now globally infamous for being the largest informal recycling hub of e-waste on earth. The upsetting circumstances in which e-waste is recycled in Guiyu was first fully documented in 2001 by the Basel Action Network (BAN) – an organization that focuses on the trade of toxics – in their report and documentary film Exporting Harm. The nearby University of Shantou has published a variety of reports indicating higher lead content in the blood of Guiyu’s newborns, elevated rates of miscarriages and the presence of cancer-causing dioxins in the air.
While at first sight the Chinese society and authorities seem to be responsible for the e-waste mess, the situation is more complex. In fact, a number of important factors weaken the argument that China is the only one to blame.
Firstly, China outperforms many developed countries with its effective - albeit informal - waste collection system and intense reuse of materials. E-waste in Western countries all too often ends up in landfills putting pressure on the environment through leakage issues and through the increased extraction of virgin resources. Statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that U.S. e-waste recycling rates were at only 18 percent of all discarded products in 2007. If the United States aims to maintain current lifestyle standards for its citizens without destroying the environment, it can learn from the Chinese recycling mentality and step up efforts to recycle precious and rare materials as to ensure future production of electronic products.
Secondly, Chinese authorities have been tackling the e-waste problem by constructing recycling facilities and establishing official collection points. These initiatives, however, have not been too successful. According to the director of the official e-waste collection bureau of the Haidian district - the place to be in Beijing if you want to buy electronic goods – official recycling facilities operate far under capacity. The Haidian district office, for instance, collects only about 1000 computers per year mostly from schools and official institutions. A sharp contrast can be found in the Ba Jia Cun district, the first station of Beijing’s informal recycling sector. This shanty town is in itself a city of trash - there is the cardboard district, the plastic bottle field, the television alley, and the computer monitor courtyard – and flourishes of activity. The existence of a well-organized informal recycling industry undermines the efforts of the Chinese authorities which cannot offer competitive prices for e-waste because of the higher costs of safe recycling.
Thirdly, and most instructional, the largest chunk of e-waste comes from outside China, and this despite an import ban on e-waste implemented in 2000. E-waste is the fastest growing source of waste in developed countries and the tendency of ever shorter lifecycles of electronic products foresights no improvement. If the e-waste does not end up in landfills, Western countries tend to export it to developing countries where it can be dismantled cheaper but with little concern for the environment or human health. A 2002 report from the BAN and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition estimates that 80 percent of the world’s hi-tech trash is exported to Asia, and 90 percent of this flows into China. These large amounts of illegal e-waste coming to China strengthens the flourishing of the informal e-waste business and poses major challenges for the Chinese authorities.
Of course, in addition to these assuaging factors, there are equally some deficiencies in the way the Chinese deal with e-waste. Law enforcement, for instance, is a major problem for the Chinese central authority; and corruption is still widely present. Different sources mention the practice of taping 100-dollar bills inside the back of shipping containers filled with e-waste as a bribe for Chinese customs agents. A part of the explanation is the stress the Chinese central government puts on boosting economic growth, rather than giving primary importance to other goals, such as the environment. However, what the previous paragraph indicates is that e-waste should not be China’s burden, but that it is a global problem that needs a global solution. After all, China is not the only country with e-waste problems: e-waste recycling increasingly takes place in a variety of countries such as Vietnam, India and South-Africa.
Considering the global reach of the problem, the international community has thus far undertaken surprisingly little. The closest of an international agreement regulating e-waste is the Basel Convention which is administered by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and addresses the transboundary movement of hazardous and other wastes. However, the Basel Convention lacks the mandate to seriously tackle the e-waste problem. Confusion exists if e-waste is incorporated in the Basel Convention or not, which partly stems from the fact that there is no internationally agreed upon definition of e-waste. Furthermore, the largest producer of e-waste in the world, the United States, has not ratified the Basel Convention, which leaves the Convention with little clout.
Instead, the United States has developed a set of guidelines and a certification system to induce electronic recyclers to engage in Responsible Recycling (R2) practices. Under R2 practices, an electronics recycler in China is subject to US regulation and would have to comply to R2-standards if it wants to be R2-certified. Despite fierce critiques from the BAN, the logic behind R2 might offer some solutions for the e-waste challenge. R2 tackles recycling, not the transport of e-waste as is the case under the Basel Convention. Transporting e-waste is no harm in itself, and should be possible as long as recycling in the destination country happens in a responsible way. Avoiding export and import bans increases the chance of e-waste leaving the black market and be recycled under official standards. Another benefit of R2 is that it can lighten developing countries’ burden of law enforcement. For instance, it is the task of the US government, not the Chinese government, to accredit R2 certification.
Although the R2 guidelines are thus far on a voluntary basis, there is pressure on recycling companies in that those companies that are R2-certified have a step ahead over their competitors in terms of corporate image. The question is whether this is a strong enough driving force, making legislation unnecessary. Much will depend on electronic producer behavior and eventually consumer behavior. When consumers care about a green electronic product, producers will follow suit and manufacture products that contain less toxic materials, that are easier recyclable and thus also products that use responsible recycled materials.
Marketing and eco-grading systems of electronic products then become preponderant. In 1992, the US government created the energy star program which today is an international standard for energy efficient electronic products. A similar program exists that utilizes a more cradle-to-grave approach and assesses a total of 23 environmental criteria for certification. The program includes end-of-life criteria extensively but it clearly lacks visibility to be effective. It is called the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) – have you heard of it?
Eduard Eykelberg, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), was part of a team that studied the collection and processing of electronic waste in China. Based on interviews with governmental officials, academia and NGOs in both China and the United States a 100-page final report was drafted and the results were presented to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). For Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia he wrote this review.
