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China Bans U.S. Electronic Scrap
ReverseC writes "Think twice before you throw that those computer parts in the garbage. Do you really know where it's going? The Guardian reports China has banned US's electronic junk." We did a previous story about the U.S. dumping electronic scrap in China.
"Think twice before you throw that those computer parts in the garbage. Do you really know where it's going?"
Why yes, yes I do.
If I put it in the trash it goes to a dump.
If I take it to a recycle center it is more likely to be shipped to China.
Electronic scrap puts the lives of rural villagers at risk
Beijing has announced a clampdown on the import of electronic junk from the US and other developed countries which is being stripped by Chinese peasants in primitive and dangerous conditions.
The ban follows an outcry by western environmental groups and in the Chinese press about reports that young children are employed to smash up computers and that local water supplies have been poisoned by toxic waste.
A new list of banned items will include "TV sets, computers, Xerox machines, video cameras and telephones", according to the national environment agency.
Visitors to villages near Guiyu town in the southern province of Guangdong have seen printed circuit boards and other junk"cooked" over open fires to extract valuable metals.
One Chinese reporter saw a four-year old girl prising copper coils out of shattered components. "Completely unprotected, without even basic safety goggles, the girls pound away and laugh as bits of metal and plastic fly."
In Beilin village, the reporter noted, women armed with pliers worked in front of small furnaces "to retrieve chips from circuit boards immersed in pools of molten solder".
Raising fears that China was becoming a "dumping ground" for electronic junk, the country's environment agency said this week that police would crack down on "the smuggling of dangerous wastes". However, it appeared to leave a loophole by saying that if "proper methods" were used, the environment need not be harmed.
The trade in so-called e-waste in Guangdong has persisted in spite of claims last year that the provincial government was taking effective action.
Local dealers say they suspended work while inspections were being made, and residents claim that police officials have been paid off.
A Shanghai reporter who visited the Guiyu area under cover was threatened with violence when local bosses discovered his identity. Earlier one of the bosses had told him that the local water was so polluted "that our faces come out in scabs if we wash in it".
Villagers say they know the health risks but have no alternative because the financial yield from farming is so low. In any case the land is now too poisoned to grow crops.
The environmental groups Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition said in a report this year that up to 80% of electronic waste from the US was shipped to countries in Asia including India, Pakistan and China.
The report cites three reasons why so much waste is exported from the US: labour costs in Asia are very low, environmental and occupational codes are poorly enforced, and US law does not impose any controls on such exports.
The US is the only industrialised country to have failed to ratify the 1989 UN Basel convention which calls for a total ban on the export of hazardous waste.
Most e-waste in Guiyu comes from the US with smaller amounts from Japan, South Korea and Europe. The report describes how printer cartridges are ripped apart to extract toner and aluminium, and cathode-ray tubes are hammered open for their copper yokes.
Because of ground water pollution, drinking water has to be trucked in. Irrigation canals have been filled with broken monitor glass laden with lead, and plastic e-waste.
Chinese press accounts suggest that up to 100,000 people may be employed in processing e-waste in Guiyu. Hundreds of truck journeys every day bring in supplies from the port of Nanhai - close to the provincial capital of Guangzhou - where the waste arrives in container loads.
Some operations were halted after earlier revelations in the Hong Kong press, and tougher controls are expected after the new ban. Even if these are effective the problems of resulting unemployment and land contamination remain to be tackled.
That was only to get even with you lot wrecking their plane. But to take this further, maybe we could convince the 1.2 billion Chinese, that you can dump your junk on their soil, if they can dump their junk on your soil.
Come to think of it, the US might still be better off: It is still the world's largest poluter per capita and *not willing to do anything about it*.
Use Adsense for Charity
Actually, China claims 200 miles of airspace surrounding its landmass, and the plane was 60 miles off the coast when the incident took place. Top Speed for an EP-3 is 345 knots, which could have put it over Chinese soil in 9 minutes. These are numbers that would alarm most Americans if the situation were reversed. Of course, many Americans also have a limited world-view, obscured by things like nationalism, so it does make sense that there weren't many Americans speaking against our actions.
But then, this isn't the first time the U.S. has thrown itself in over its head and had to demand that prisoners be released. Remember that little incident in Bosnia? There was a little tiff brewing in Bosnia where U.S. soldiers had been stationed that hardly got media play. If it did, it was always the last or next to last story on the news, coming just after the local story about the kitten being rescued from a tree. While on a training mission, traveling in Hummers, some soldiers accidentally crossed the border by several miles. When they did, they were captured. Suddenly it was the top story, and U.S. officials were practically calling for blood. The sentiment was "How DARE you capture and detain our soldiers who were illegally trespassing on your soil?!" Bosnian officials said that they were pondering trying these doughboys for their crime. Under the threat of harsh U.S. aggression, they were finally released and allowed to return home. The point here is that is was a non-story for Americans until 3 American soldiers were captured. Little did it matter that Bosnian civilians were dying daily from U.S. bombing missions that were hitting civilian marketplaces, and at one point, the Chinese Embassy. Its this kind of blind, stupid patriotism that gets us into trouble with the world community, and makes even our allies hesitate before hopping into military operations with us.
Molecular nanotech does seem like the next industrial ( and medical ) revolution . But how abaut the energy question . When 6000000000 people will want to be far richer than the upper class is today ( whith MNT i dont think anyone will acept the unequalities we have today ) the energy consumption vould rise to whole new levels . I mean even iff we could easely assemble power plants , that to takes energy and we wuold still need fuel (oil , coal ) or set aside large arials for solar or wind power . I dont see how the energy question can be esealy solwed whihtout upploading to energy efficient computers and then who realy cares about the enviroment . So considering that it would be energy consuming to recycle the junk it might wery well be large dumps off toxic electronic junk from an ever groving computer industry even in a nanotech world . There wont be poor people geting hurt taking them apart however .
More tolerant than you'd think. While I was in the Navy, I saw more than a few Chinese/Russian ELINT outfitted trawlers out in SoCal. Never heard of China or Russia running airborne ELINT ops off our coast, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.