Taizhou chosen as electronic waste dump
By Chen Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-29 10:13

They sit all day, using chisels and hammers to smash cellphone chargers, laptop computers, air-conditioners, printers and other electronic refuse.

With scarred hands, they pick through the splintered debris for copper, bronze and anything else that might have value, using cutting torches to open oil-laden transformers.

Without protective clothing, they burn circuit boards, aluminium waste, electric wires and plastic parts of computers and printers in the open air.

They are labourers working at the large-scale dismantling yards in Taizhou of East China's Zhejiang Province.

Their work has transformed the coastal rice-farming region into one of the country's major recycling depots for technological waste. Harmful to the health of the workers and the local people, it is also doing irreparable environmental damage.

Significant quantities of highly-pollutant electronic waste (e-waste) are entering the country illegally from Japan and South Korea.

These are part of the findings of Greenpeace China and the Basel Action Network (BAN) from a field investigation conducted in Taizhou between February 11-13. The two international environmental organizations released their findings at the recent International Conference on Electronic Waste and Producers Environmental Responsibilities held in Beijing.

China's thirst for steel and copper to fuel booming infrastructural growth is one reason for the illegal influx of toxic e-waste, said Jim Puckett, co-ordinator of BAN based in Seattle in the United States. The waste is mixed with the massive amounts of scrap imports from Japan and South Korea.

According to the report from the field investigation, the import of most forms of e-waste into China has been forbidden under national law for several years and export of e-waste without Chinese approval is illegal in Japan.

Yet the environmentalists still found e-waste is pouring into the country through the Shujiang Port of Taizhou.

Massive quantities of mixed metal scraps of all kinds are off-loaded 24 hours a day, said Lai Yun, toxic campaigner of Greenpeace China. Hundreds of green dump trucks line up to accept the waste picked up by cranes from bulkloading vessels from Japan and South Korea.

At first, the waste is transferred to two very large holding areas. Then it is reloaded, making its way to hundreds of scrap yards found in Taizhou. At any given hour, one can see hundreds of trucks running through the streets of Taizhou, said Lai.

The mixed scrap was observed to contain various e-waste such as computers, telephones, cameras, and printers. Most had Japanese or American labels, he said.

"Most of electronic waste is coming from recycling programmes in countries that are trying to prevent pollution of their own territory," said Lai. "It is unacceptable when such toxic waste is carefully collected in countries like Japan, only to be dumped in China without concern for its ultimate fate."

Besides the large-scale dismantling yards, Lai said, a survey of nearby rural areas around Taizhou revealed thousands of local farmers are also engaged in primitive and dangerous e-waste recycling operations.

"They are very easy to find due to the acrid smell of melting solder that hangs over the once fresh farmland," said Lai.

But the farmers claim they will starve if they make a living only by farming.

In 2002, BAN, Greenpeace and other organizations revealed Guiyu in South China's Guangdong Province as a major North American e-waste dumping zone. The discovery of the widespread informal recycling activities in Taizhou raises fears that the smuggling problem of e-waste in this area would surpass Guiyu if proper measures are not taken.

"Taizhou looks like it is fast becoming another environmental and health tragedy like Guiyu," said Puckett.

"But the real crime here is not the willingness of poor farmers to make a living; the real crime is the unwillingness of countries like the United States and Japan to take responsibility for preventing the global dumping of their own toxic waste.

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