The Global Epidemic Of eWaste Dumping
Over the past few decades there has been an explosion in the production of electronic devices around the world. Many of these products have a short lifespan (1-3 years) and they create an astronomical amount of waste, especially when they are not disposed of properly. Today Americans own three billion electronic products, with a turnover rate of about 400 million units each year. There are plenty of responsible electronics recycling businesses here in the US, but some recycling businesses are more concerned about making green than going green.
Electronic devices are not designed to be easily broken down, and it’s a difficult process to extract the various metals and plastics to be further refined for reuse. Because of this, the recycling process can be costly, which is why many electronics companies have, and still do export the eWaste they collect to developing nations where labor is cheap.
Sunnking is not one of those recyclers. In fact, everything we collect at our facilities is broken down, processed, refined, and reused right here in the US.
At the surface, many of you would find very little wrong with exporting eScrap to 3rd world countries. It’s not like we’re just dumping garbage on them. The various electronics are worth something, and the workers are getting paid for their work…aren’t we helping to create jobs for poorer nations and putting food on their tables?
The answer is yes. The eWaste does create jobs, it does put food on the table, but it also does a lot of harm to the environment, and even more harm to those workers and their families living in and around the areas where the eScrap is processed. The costs far outweigh the benefits…
Consumer electronics contain a variety of harmful materials such as brominated flame retardants, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, and polyvinyl chlorides. These chemicals and metals pollutes the soil, water, and air, and cause irreversible damage to both humans and animals. In developing nations such as Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, and even in developed nations like China, the damage from eWaste is an epidemic.
Unlike most of the recycling facilities here in the US, the recycling process in the nations that we export our waste to is anything but modern. Men, women, and children in villages like Guiyu, China (dubbed the most toxic place on earth) live in villages built on and surrounded by mountains of electronic waste and they make their living using primitive methods to extract the valuable metals from them. The water is undrinkable and must be trucked in, the soil is too contaminated to grow produce, the air is acrid and thick with smoke, and the livestock contain unsafe levels of contaminates, which are ultimately consumed by the local population.
Once the eScrap that’s exported (many times illegally) to the developing nations is broken down, and the precious metals are extracted, the rest of the electronic components are either dumped or burned. Here are some of the primitive methods that are used…
- Bashing open cathode ray tubes with hammers, exposing the toxic phosphor dust inside.
- Cooking circuit boards in woks over open fires to melt the lead solder, breathing in toxic lead fumes.
- Burning wires in open piles to melt away the plastics (to get at the copper inside).
- Burning the plastic casings, creating dioxins and furans – some of the most poisonous fumes you can breathe.
- Throwing the unwanted (but very hazardous) leaded glass into former irrigation ditches
- Dumping pure acids and dissolved heavy metals directly into their rivers.
So next time you go to an electronics recycling collection event, do your research. Make sure that the business running the event is actually breaking down your eScrap and recycling it right here in the US.