Like people everywhere else in the world, Chinese citizens love spending money on gadgets.

But the constant drive to have the latest technology has inevitably led to a dramatic increase in the number of obsolete products being unceremoniously dumped.

This so-called "e-waste" has become a global problem.

Chen An, a 30-year old PR officer in Beijing, bought her first computer in 1994. The 486 PC package with a colour inkjet printer cost her about 15,000 yuan (US$1,807).

Over the past nine years, however, Chen has updated her computer five times. Each unit sat on her desk for an average of only 18 months.

There are an estimated 30 million computers in use around China. Another 2.1 million are expected to enter the market this year, while 5 million will be discarded as obsolete.

This amounts to thousands of tons of e-waste made up of obsolete computers, broken monitors, used toner and ink cartridges, modems, printers and a wide range of other peripherals.

The question is where all these unwanted computers and other e-waste end up.

"I paid a few hundred yuan to get a Pentium processor and modem to replace the old 486 so that I could use the Internet at home," says Chen. "Eventually, I no longer needed it. Even with the upgrades, I couldn't give it away. No one wanted it."

Threat of e-waste

Chen is not alone. Piles and piles of waste computers, TV sets, refrigerators and other electronic products are eating up limited space.

According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese citizens own 370 million TV sets, 150 million refrigerators and 190 million washing machines -- and those numbers continue to rise.

Most of those appliances came into service in the mid-1980s and are approaching the end of their working life. An average of 4 million refrigerators, 5 million TV sets and 6 million washing machines are thrown away each year.

Meanwhile, as the number of computers and mobile phones has skyrocketed, 5 million computers and over 10 million mobile phones fall into disuse annually.

It's a crisis of both quantity and quality.

Computers and other electronic equipment are made from hundreds of different materials. Many of those components are inherently valuable, such as gold and platinum, and many are non-renewable. If they can be extracted they can be recycled and reused in manufacturing.

But there are also some harmful materials in e-waste. Heavy metals including lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic are used in electronic equipment.

Brominated-flame retardants used in computer equipment are both an occupational and environmental health threat. Printer inks and toners often contain toxic materials such as carbon black and cadmium.

It is these environmental health implications that have put e-waste under the spotlight of governments and environmentalists alike.

The threat is not only inward. The export of e-waste to Asia remains a booming business both in Europe and North America.

Despite crackdowns and a government ban on hazardous imports, as much as 90 per cent of the US e-waste ends up as "recyclable" in China, India and other developing countries.

Rough recycling sector

As a network for e-waste collecting has not yet been established, most of the discarded appliances are now collected by transient peddlers. Some products enter the second-hand market after slight modification, to be sold at a low price. Appliances such as TV sets and washing machines are sold in remote areas where people are more concerned with price rather than the appliances themselves.

While it is good to extend their usefulness, these appliances obviously have a limited life span and eventually end up as waste.

Facing mountains of e-waste, China lacks a sound recycling network to tackle them, says Xu Shufan, section chief with State Environmental Development Administration.

Xu says existing laws and regulations are not systemic and harmonious, especially on recycling duties, dismantling criteria and the licensing system.

"Many local governments mistakenly believe that dismantling will pollute the environment seriously," says Xu. "So they block the development of that sector."

But in contrast, in some ports of coastal China, a cluster of villages have become reprocessing centres.

And many unlicensed workshops with poor facilities have joined the business of recycling electronic wastes, even though they do not meet the State's processing standards.

Local entrepreneurs buy the trash in bulk and employ migrant labourers to break it down to its constituent parts, which are sold and reused.

Xu says the difficulty with electronic waste and many other products is that they are made from a huge range of component materials that are useless for further manufacture until the product is dismantled and the component materials are separated -- often a very difficult and expensive process.

The work is dirty and dangerous. Computer components are roasted over coal fires, for instance, or treated with acid to extract copper, gold and other metals.

"We need to come up with detailed regulations to protect workers in dismantling," says Xu.

Currently, few, if any, precautions are taken to protect the workers or the environment against lead, mercury, cadmium and other toxic substances found in monitors, keyboards and other electronic refuse.

Women and men without protective gear, sometimes with babies strapped to their backs, sift through junk, fishing for salvageable parts before dumping the remains into open fields to be burned, or into long-dead rivers.

Xu also says the potential market for e-waste processing has attracted numerous companies. But with the high cost and advanced technology required, only when the quantity of e-waste reaches a certain level can processing become profitable.

Xu suggests a new collection network is needed, in which government would play a bigger role. "The disposal of e-waste is a systematic task requiring nationwide efforts, and the government should act as both regulator and organizer," he says.

Latest effort

Another SEPA official says China will continuously tighten control on illegal imports of junked computers and other high-tech trash following reports of health and environmental damage caused by unsafe recycling.

Chinese environmental supervisors will also shut down factories where toxic chemicals are being released by the improper recycling of e-trash -- mostly printers, computer screens and circuit boards from countries such as the United States.

State departments in charge of environmental protection, customs and quarantine had published a detailed list of banned electronic wastes from overseas, which include TV sets, computer displays, photocopiers, video cameras and telephones.

"We should ban anything on the list," says the SEPA official, who only gave his surname Li.

He noted that some developing countries run the risk of becoming dumping grounds for electronic waste from developed countries, though an international treaty on the control of border-crossing transfer of dangerous wastes has been widely accepted around the world.

Certain countries should strengthen control over the export of their electronic wastes to prevent it from being dumped in China, he says, adding that China's regulations on the import of electronic wastes should also be better publicized worldwide.

Legal endeavour

Meanwhile, China will follow the example of the European Union (EU) and announce its own rules on the prohibition of certain harmful substances in electric and electronic products in the near future, says Huang Jianzhong, division head of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

He revealed that electronic and information product pollution prevention regulatory measures were submitted to the ministerial meeting of the MII early this year and then sent to the six other relevant government departments for approval. The new rule will only take effect after this process is completed.

"I can't reveal the exact timetable, but it should be very soon," Huang says.

"We must respond to the EU directives actively and elevate the technological levels of the electronic and information industries," he added.

The EU released two directives on waste from electrical and electronic equipment and restrictions on the use of certain hazardous materials (RoHS) last year.

Huang says that although the real influence of the directives will only be clear from July 2007, the RoHS directive will have a significant impact on manufacturers.

Similar to the EU directives, the Chinese Government's measures will require all electronic and information product manufacturers to use environmentally friendly components and include recycling plans in their designs.

They will also be forbidden to use lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, and the bromine-containing flame retardants PBB and PBDE.

Li Jing, a National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) official in charge of the environment and resource conservation affairs, says directives and restrictions on hazardous substances passed by the EU provided a stimulus to Chinese regulators to establish a collection and recycling system.

Li expects legislators will pass such a regulation in the regard within two years.

Under the directive, as long as equipment has not been rebranded by resellers, the ultimate responsibility for its disposal lies with the original equipment manufacturers.

Huang added that manufacturers and importers will also be required to put notices on components, expiration dates of electric and electronic products and a label indicating whether they are renewable.

"We are laying the groundwork for a sound legal system," says Li.

(China Daily April 29, 2004)