FYI...thought you might find this interesting.

Causes one to pause and wonder how much of this is coming back to us
in the food we import....and no one is testing.

TMT

China's e-waste nightmare worsening By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated
Press Writer


The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside
homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer
motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash
picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing
as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

For five years, environmentalists and the media have highlighted the
danger to Chinese workers who dismantle much of the world's junked
electronics. Yet a visit to this southeastern Chinese town regarded as
the heartland of "e-waste" disposal shows little has improved. In
fact, the problem is growing worse because of China's own
contribution.

China now produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year, said
Jamie Choi, a toxics campaigner with Greenpeace China in Beijing. That
adds up to roughly 5 million television sets, 4 million fridges, 5
million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million
personal computers, according to Choi.

"Most e-waste in China comes from overseas, but the amount of domestic
e-waste is on the rise," he said.

This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where
safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times
cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor
migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to
earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.

International agreements and European regulations have made a dent in
the export of old electronics to China, but loopholes -- and sometimes
bribes -- allow many to skirt the requirements. And only a sliver of
the electronics sold get returned to manufacturers such as Dell and
Hewlett Packard for safe recycling.

Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental
standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are
used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while
spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation's skies and rivers.

Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to
come by. However, experts agree that it is overwhelmingly a problem of
the developing world. They estimate about 70 percent of the 20-50
million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped
in China, with most of the rest going to India and poor African
nations.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is ten times
cheaper to export e-waste than to dispose of it at home.

Imports slip into China despite a Chinese ban and Beijing's
ratification of the Basel Convention, an international agreement that
outlaws the trade. Industry monitor Ted Smith said one U.S. exporter
told him all that was needed to get shipments past Chinese customs
officials was a crisp $100 bill taped to the inside of each container.

"The central government is well aware of the problems but has been
unable or unwilling to really address it," said Smith, senior
strategist with the California-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition,
which focuses on the electronics industry.

The European Union bans such exports, but Smith and others say
smuggling is rife, largely due to the lack of measures to punish rule
breakers. China, meanwhile, allows the import of plastic waste and
scrap metal, which many recyclers use as an excuse to send old
electronics there.

And though U.S. states increasingly require that electronics be sent
to collection and recycling centers, even from those centers, American
firms can send the e-waste abroad legally because Congress hasn't
ratified the Basel Convention.

The results are visible on the streets of Guiyu, where the e-waste
industry employs an estimated 150,000 people. Shipping containers of
computer parts, old video games, computer screens, cell phones and
electronics of all kinds, from ancient to nearly new, are dumped onto
the streets and sorted for dismantling and melting.

Valuable metals such as copper, gold, and silver are removed through
melting and acid baths, while steel is torn out for scrap and plastic
is ground into pellets for other use.

This is big business for those who control the trade. Luxury sedans
are parked in front of elaborate mansions in downtown Guiyu, adorned
with fancy names such as "Hall of Southernly Peace."

Many of those who do the dirty work are migrants from poorer parts of
China, too desperate or uninformed to care about the health risks.

In the town of Nanyang, a few minutes drive from Guiyu, a middle-aged
couple from the inland province of Hunan sorts wiring in a mud-floored
shack. Such work, including melting down motherboards, earns them
about $100 per month, said the husband, who answered reluctantly and
wouldn't give his name.

Many houses double as smelter and home. Gas burners shaped like
blacksmith's forges squat beside the front doors, their flues rising
several stories to try to dissipate the toxic smoke.

Nonetheless, a visitor soon develops a throbbing headache and metallic
taste in the mouth. The groundwater has long been too polluted for
human consumption. The amount of lead in the river sediment is double
European safety levels, according to the Basel Action Network, an
environmental group.

Yet, aside from trucking in drinking water, the health risks seem
largely ignored. Fish are still raised in local ponds, and piles of
ash and plastic waste sit beside rice paddies and dikes holding in the
area's main Lianjiang river.

Chemicals, including mercury, fluorine, barium, chromium, and cobalt,
that either leach from the waste or are used in processing, are blamed
for skin rashes and respiratory problems. Contamination can take
decades to dissipate, experts say, and long-term health effects can
include kidney and nervous system damage, weakening of the immune
system and cancer.

"Of course, recycling is more environmentally sound," said Wu Song, a
former local university student who has studied the area. "But I
wouldn't really call what's happening here recycling."

Those who control the business in Guiyu are hostile to outside
scrutiny. Reporters visiting the area with a Greenpeace volunteer were
trailed by tough-looking youths who notified local police, leading to
a six-hour detention for questioning.

Government departments from the provincial to township levels refused
to answer questions. The central government's Environmental Protection
Agency did not reply to faxed questions.

Guiyu faces growing competition from other cities, notably Taizhou,
about 450 miles up the coast in Zhejiang province. Meanwhile,
collection yards have sprung up on the fringes of most major cities.
The owners sell what they can to recyclers -- most of them unregulated
-- and simply dump the rest.

Efforts to recycle e-waste safely in China have struggled. Few people
bring in waste, because the illegal operators pay more.

"We're not even breaking even," said Gao Jian, marketing director of
New World Solid Waste in the northeastern city of Qingdao. "These guys
pay more because they don't need expensive equipment, but their
methods are really dangerous."

The city of Shanghai opened a dedicated e-waste handling center last
year, but most residents and companies prefer the "guerrilla" junkers
who ride through neighborhoods on flatbed tricycles ringing bells to
attract customers, said Yu Jinbiao of the Shanghai Electronic Products
Repair Service Association, a government-backed industry federation.

"Those guerrillas are convenient and offer a good price," Yu said, "so
there is a big market for them."

My scrap man told me that he gets about 60 cents per lb for computer
boards and PCB in general.

i

On Nov 18, 7:07 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
FYI...thought you might find this interesting.

Causes one to pause and wonder how much of this is coming back to us
in the food we import....and no one is testing.

TMT

China's e-waste nightmare worsening By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated
Press Writer

The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside
homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer
motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash
picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing
as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

For five years, environmentalists and the media have highlighted the
danger to Chinese workers who dismantle much of the world's junked
electronics. Yet a visit to this southeastern Chinese town regarded as
the heartland of "e-waste" disposal shows little has improved. In
fact, the problem is growing worse because of China's own
contribution.

China now produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year, said
Jamie Choi, a toxics campaigner with Greenpeace China in Beijing. That
adds up to roughly 5 million television sets, 4 million fridges, 5
million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million
personal computers, according to Choi.

"Most e-waste in China comes from overseas, but the amount of domestic
e-waste is on the rise," he said.

This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where
safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times
cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor
migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to
earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.

International agreements and European regulations have made a dent in
the export of old electronics to China, but loopholes -- and sometimes
bribes -- allow many to skirt the requirements. And only a sliver of
the electronics sold get returned to manufacturers such as Dell and
Hewlett Packard for safe recycling.

Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental
standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are
used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while
spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation's skies and rivers.

Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to
come by. However, experts agree that it is overwhelmingly a problem of
the developing world. They estimate about 70 percent of the 20-50
million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped
in China, with most of the rest going to India and poor African
nations.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is ten times
cheaper to export e-waste than to dispose of it at home.

Imports slip into China despite a Chinese ban and Beijing's
ratification of the Basel Convention, an international agreement that
outlaws the trade. Industry monitor Ted Smith said one U.S. exporter
told him all that was needed to get shipments past Chinese customs
officials was a crisp $100 bill taped to the inside of each container.

"The central government is well aware of the problems but has been
unable or unwilling to really address it," said Smith, senior
strategist with the California-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition,
which focuses on the electronics industry.

The European Union bans such exports, but Smith and others say
smuggling is rife, largely due to the lack of measures to punish rule
breakers. China, meanwhile, allows the import of plastic waste and
scrap metal, which many recyclers use as an excuse to send old
electronics there.

And though U.S. states increasingly require that electronics be sent
to collection and recycling centers, even from those centers, American
firms can send the e-waste abroad legally because Congress hasn't
ratified the Basel Convention.

The results are visible on the streets of Guiyu, where the e-waste
industry employs an estimated 150,000 people. Shipping containers of
computer parts, old video games, computer screens, cell phones and
electronics of all kinds, from ancient to nearly new, are dumped onto
the streets and sorted for dismantling and melting.

Valuable metals such as copper, gold, and silver are removed through
melting and acid baths, while steel is torn out for scrap and plastic
is ground into pellets for other use.

This is big business for those who control the trade. Luxury sedans
are parked in front of elaborate mansions in downtown Guiyu, adorned
with fancy names such as "Hall of Southernly Peace."

Many of those who do the dirty work are migrants from poorer parts of
China, too desperate or uninformed to care about the health risks.

In the town of Nanyang, a few minutes drive from Guiyu, a middle-aged
couple from the inland province of Hunan sorts wiring in a mud-floored
shack. Such work, including melting down motherboards, earns them
about $100 per month, said the husband, who answered reluctantly and
wouldn't give his name.

Many houses double as smelter and home. Gas burners shaped like
blacksmith's forges squat beside the front doors, their flues rising
several stories to try to dissipate the toxic smoke.

Nonetheless, a visitor soon develops a throbbing headache and metallic
taste in the mouth. The groundwater has long been too polluted for
human consumption. The amount of lead in the river sediment is double
European safety levels, according to the Basel Action Network, an
environmental group.

Yet, aside from trucking in drinking water, the health risks seem
largely ignored. Fish are still raised in local ponds, and piles of
ash and plastic waste sit beside rice paddies and dikes holding in the
area's main Lianjiang river.

Chemicals, including mercury, fluorine, barium, chromium, and cobalt,
that either leach from the waste or are used in processing, are blamed
for skin rashes and respiratory problems. Contamination can take
decades to dissipate, experts say, and long-term health effects can
include kidney and nervous system damage, weakening of the immune
system and cancer.

"Of course, recycling is more environmentally sound," said Wu Song, a
former local university student who has studied the area. "But I
wouldn't really call what's happening here recycling."

Those who control the business in Guiyu are hostile to outside
scrutiny. Reporters visiting the area with a Greenpeace volunteer were
trailed by tough-looking youths who notified local police, leading to
a six-hour detention for questioning.

Government departments from the provincial to township levels refused
to answer questions. The central government's Environmental Protection
Agency did not reply to faxed questions.

Guiyu faces growing competition from other cities, notably Taizhou,
about 450 miles up the coast in Zhejiang province. Meanwhile,
collection yards have sprung up on the fringes of most major cities.
The owners sell what they can to recyclers -- most of them unregulated
-- and simply dump the rest.

Efforts to recycle e-waste safely in China have struggled. Few people
bring in waste, because the illegal operators pay more.

"We're not even breaking even," said Gao Jian, marketing director of
New World Solid Waste in the northeastern city of Qingdao. "These guys
pay more because they don't need expensive equipment, but their
methods are really dangerous."

The city of Shanghai opened a dedicated e-waste handling center last
year, but most residents and companies prefer the "guerrilla" junkers
who ride through neighborhoods on flatbed tricycles ringing bells to
attract customers, said Yu Jinbiao of the Shanghai Electronic Products
Repair Service Association, a government-backed industry federation.

"Those guerrillas are convenient and offer a good price," Yu said, "so
there is a big market for them."

Another story of the problem...

I wonder how the impact of the switch from analog to digital
television will affect the e-waste stream...

TMT

America ships electronic waste overseas By TERENCE CHEA, Associated
Press Writer
Sun Nov 18

Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their
old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're
contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers
workers and pollutes the environment overseas.

While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80
percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for
recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries
such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and
their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables,
exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic
chemicals.

"It is being recycled, but it's being recycled in the most horrific
way you can imagine," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network,
the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong
authorities. "We're preserving our own environment, but contaminating
the rest of the world."

The gear most likely to be shipped abroad is collected at free
recycling drives, often held each April around Earth Day, recycling
industry officials say. The sponsors -- chiefly companies, schools,
cities and counties -- often hire the cheapest firms and do not ask
enough questions about what becomes of the discarded equipment, the
officials say.

Many so-called recyclers simply sell the working units and components,
then give or sell the remaining scrap to export brokers.

"There are a lot of people getting away with exporting e-waste," said
John Bekiaris, chief executive of San Francisco-based HMR USA Inc.,
which collects and disposes of unwanted IT equipment from Bay Area
businesses. "Anyone who's disposing of their computer equipment really
needs to do a thorough inspection of the vendors they use."

The problem could get worse. Most of the 2 million tons of old
electronics discarded annually by Americans goes to U.S. landfills,
according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. But a growing
number of states are banning such waste from landfills, which could
drive more waste into the recycling stream and fuel exports, activists
say.

Many brokers claim they are simply exporting used equipment for reuse
in poor countries. That's what happened in September, when customs
officials in Hong Kong were tipped off by environmentalists and
intercepted two freight containers. They cracked the containers open
and found hundreds of old computer monitors and televisions discarded
by Americans thousands of miles away.

China bans the import of electronic waste, so the containers were sent
back to the U.S.

The company that shipped out the containers was Fortune Sky USA, a
Cordova, Tenn.-based subsidiary of a Chinese company. General manager
Vincent Yu said his company thought it was buying and shipping used
computers, not old monitors and televisions, and is trying to get its
money back.

Fortune Sky exports used computers and components to China, Malaysia,
Vietnam and other Asian countries.

"There's a huge market over there for secondhand computers that we
don't use anymore," Yu said. "I don't think it's going to cause any
pollution. If the equipment can still be used, then that's good for
everybody."

Yu refused to say where he bought the material, but Basel Action
Network tracked it to a San Antonio, Texas, company that collects
computers, printers and other electronics from schools and businesses.

Activists complain that most exporters don't test units to make sure
they work before sending them overseas.

"Reuse is the new excuse. It's the new passport to export," said
Puckett of Basel Action Network. "Other countries are facing this glut
of exported used equipment under the pretext that it's all going to be
reused."

At the other end at customs, the goods don't always get checked
either.

"It is impossible to stop and check every single container imported
into Hong Kong," said Kenneth Chan of Hong Kong's Environmental
Protection Department. "Smugglers may also deliberately declare
their ... waste as goods."

In the first nine months of this year, Hong Kong authorities returned
85 containers of electronic junk, including 20 from the U.S.

Exporting most electronic waste isn't illegal in the United States.
The U.S. does bar the export of monitors and televisions with cathode-
ray tubes without permission from the importing country, but federal
authorities don't have the resources to check most containers.

The EPA recognizes the problem but doesn't believe that stopping
exports is the solution, said Matt Hale, who heads the agency's office
of solid waste. Since most electronics are manufactured abroad, it
makes sense to recycle them abroad, Hale said.

"What we need to do is work internationally to upgrade the standards
(for recycling) wherever it takes place," he said.

The EPA is working with environmental groups, recyclers and
electronics manufacturers to develop a system to certify companies
that recycle electronics responsibly. But so far the various players
have not agreed on standards and enforcement.

Many activists believe the answer lies in requiring electronics makers
to take back and recycle their own products. Such laws would encourage
manufacturers to make products that are easier to recycle and contain
fewer dangerous chemicals, they say.

Eight states, including five this year, have passed such laws, and
companies such as Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony now take back
their products at no charge. Some require consumers to mail in their
old gear, while others have drop-off centers. HP says it also now
designs its equipment with fewer toxic materials and has made it
easier to recycle.

__

On the Net:

Basel Action Network: http://www.ban.org/

Computer Take Back Campaign: http://www.computertakeback.com/

International Association of Electronics Recyclers: http://www.iaer.org/

It's ironic that when Communists adopt capitalism, they choose the
1850's version Marx complained about.

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:07:55 -0800 (PST), Too_Many_Tools
wrote:


In China, poor
migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to
earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.

I wonder if the average Chinese even knows what, if any, dangers there
are.
Most likely they're told it smells bad, but it's OK.

Thank You,
Randy

Remove 333 from email address to reply.

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:40:10 -0500, Randy wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:07:55 -0800 (PST), Too_Many_Tools
wrote:


In China, poor
migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to
earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.

I wonder if the average Chinese even knows what, if any, dangers there
are.
Most likely they're told it smells bad, but it's OK.

Thank You,
Randy

Remove 333 from email address to reply.
I wonder what effect this will have on the labour situation?
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:07:55 -0800 (PST), Too_Many_Tools
wrote:


China's e-waste nightmare worsening By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated
Press Writer


Yet wasnt it the Left who continue to **** and moan bout the Kyoto
Treaty...which exempts China from its provisions.....

Gunner