Roughly 70% of the E-waste produced by the world is shipped to China. Out of this percentage roughly 40% of the E-waste is treated properly in modern recycling plants, the other 60% is not recycled. The remaining 60% is stripped of the little precious metals that it has in an open fire. As explained in a previous in the previous post open fire burning of electronic waste pollutes the surrounding environment and creates a toxic gas that leads to acid rain.
China has made legislation in an effort to curb the amount of informal E waste recycling throughout the country. Originally china had attempted to stop all e waste recycling in China however, this was scrapped and china put into place environmental laws and regulations in order to keep pollution at bay.
“The Clean Production Promotion Law which stipulates that manufactures of products and packaging materials included in the mandatory recycle catalog have the responsibility to recycling their products and packaging materials at the end of life.”
“The Solid Waste Pollution Control Law which in principle regulates solid wastes should be reduced, properly recycled and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner, and institutions and individuals who generate solid wastes should take proper measures to prevent and reduce the pollution caused by those wastes” – ScienceDirect.com
Although there are a variety of legislation in place to control the amount of informal e-waste recycling China just doesn’t have the resources available to enforce the legislation that they put into effect.
| Stages | Number of employees per sector | ||
| Formal | Informal | Total | |
| Collection | – | 440,000 | 440,000 |
| Disassembly | 400 | 125,000 | 125,400 |
| Material recovery | 15,000 | 125,000 | 140,000 |
| Final disposal | 600 | – | 600 |
| Total | 16,000 | 690,000 | 706,000 |
In the table above you can see that the amount of workers in the Formal e waste industry compared to the informal (open fires) side of e waste is significantly less. China just doesn’t have the manpower or resources to transition e waste over to formal recycling.
There is newer technology everyday which produces more e waste from the old technology that people throw out. A new process for e waste should be created as rapidly as new technology is being invented everyday.
No wonder the pollutions in China are that bad.If most of the E-wastes are burned by open fire.It will affect the environment very badly.I hope people will consider the pollution’s problem.So our next generation can live in healthy environment.