As people's disposable income increases, their demand for electronic devices increases rapidly. According to The Guardian, Americans replace their cellphones every 22months; junking approximately 150 million old phones in 2010 alone.[1] Due to the fact that it is comparatively expensive for American enterprises to recycle and reuse the discarded electronic gadgets domestically, approximately$400 - $1,000 per ton of waste, they transport the e-waste to foreign countries for recycling, especially the developing countries in Asia, and cause serious negative externalities to the latter countries.
Although China and other countries in Asia have specific policies that prohibit importing solid waste from other countries,[2] continuous amount of e-waste continues to appear in the most impoverished areas in these developing countries. According to The New York Times, people from Guiyu, China, pile the discarded gadgets into giant mountains and incinerate them to extract the metals (copper wires, gold, and silver thread) and resell them to merchants exchanging for a few dollar’s revenue.[3] However, in order to make money out of the electronic waste, these people have to bear terrible effects in the process. First of all, people who work on the discarded waste get heavy exposure to heavy metals (lead, mercury, lithium, etc) in the process of dismantling and recycling the gadgets. When the discarded waste is being incinerated, they breathe in the smoke which contains toxic chemicals. Furthermore, they then drink the underground water that has thus been contaminated from disposing of the waste.Secondly, the local environment gets damaged by disposing of the waste. The local soil, especially, becomes barren from the contamination of the landfill. Although people from Guiyu purposefully avoid the food source that is known to be contaminated by the toxins, these food sources will eventually be delivered to people from other areas to consume.[4] Finally, the biggest problem that these people from the developing countries go through an environmental injustice, that there is a misbalance between the high environmental risk that they endure from having low education and income, versus the low environmental benefits in the area they reside and work.
So what can be done to reduce this negative externality that wealthier western countries impose on the developing countries? Governments from both sides could develop stricter command and control approaches that prohibit the import/export of electronic waste. Also, more extensive market approaches could be used in order to encourage companies to take back and recycle their used products brought in by customers. It will be very helpful if the RERA (Responsible Electronics Recycling Act) gets passed, and eco-friendly companies can come up with a reasonably certain amount of electronic devices they were going to produce and recycle each year, and make sure that their discarded devices will not be transported over abroad.
[1] France-Presse, Agence. “Levels of E-Waste Soar in Asia as Gadgets Become Affordable, UN Says.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Jan. 2017, www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/15/electronic-e-waste-levels-soar-asia-gadgets-united-nations-university-report.
[2] "Law on the Prevention of Environmental Pollution Caused by Solid Wastes". National People’s Congress (NPC),1996.
[3] Acaroglu, Leyla. “Where Do Old Cellphones Go to Die?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 May 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/opinion/sunday/where-do-old-cellphones-go-to-die.html?mcubz.
[4] gmshadowtraders. “China - World's Dumping Ground for Electronic Waste (CNN).” YouTube, YouTube, 11 June 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_ubuFhqQA.
