It is a clich of the science fiction genre to posit a future in which humanity has had to surrender the Earth's surface to the cast-off electric appliances and other rubbish that nature could no longer accommodate.

The plotlines may be fictional, but the threat posed by such garbage is real enough. China is already groaning under the weight of electronic waste (e-waste), which has become a major source of pollution because of improper treatment.

Of all the different kinds of e-waste, home electronics call out most urgently for a legal or regulatory regime for recycling, experts said.

A rubbish collector carries off the smashed remains of a gambling machine on Monday. Officials of the Pukou Sub-Bureau of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau in East China's Jiangsu Province destroyed more than 300 gambling machines at a local stone quarry. A group of about 30 rubbish collectors gathered at the spot, hoping to recover recyclable metal and wood, Police did not have a chance to dispose of the destroyed machines. [China Daily]

Home electronics represent a huge share of the e-waste generated every year, they said.

About 150 million television sets, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioners and computers are discarded every year in China, as well as an unknown amount of other home electronics, according to statistics from the China Home Electronics Association.

Moreover, an astounding 80 per cent of the home electronics thrown out by the developed world end up on container ships bound for Asia, with 90 percent of those destined for China, said a recent report by the Beijing-based Science and Technology Daily, the official newspaper of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

So where does all this electronic rubbish end up? Only 10 percent gets recycled, said the report.

The rest falls into the hands of the 10 million unlicensed "rubbish collectors" who patrol the country's neighborhoods looking for electronics to dismantle or operate larger business purchasing foreign garbage on a wholesale basis.

Of all the rubbish out there, collectors want electronics more than anything else. They can have used television sets repaired and sold in the countryside, or they can simply sell them to the many small, usually unlicensed workshops set up to extract the gold and copper from electronics.

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