urban mines and toxic towers:

the illicit trade in e-wasteeboni bledsoe

BACKGROUND

Electronics is the fastest growing manufacturing industry

In America alone, there are over 200 million computers, 200 million TVs, and 150 million+ cell phones

WHAT IS E-WASTE?

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)

“A waste category consisting of any broken or unwanted electrical or electronic devices, regardless of whether an appliance is still functional or not.” (Oswald and Reller) Any obsolete appliance with a plug or battery

HISTORY OF THE E-WASTE TRADE In the 1990s, governments in EU, Japan, and some

U.S. states instituted e-waste recycling systems. However, the capacity to deal with the waste was unavailable.

As a result, they began to export the waste to developing countries with poor environmental and labor protection.

e-Waste is expensive to recycle in developed countries the cost of glass-to-glass recycling of computer monitors

in the US is ten times more than in China. Now, demand for e-waste has grown in Asia

$75 million industry Extract Au, Fe, Ni during the recycling process for re-sale

(“urban mines”)

Source: UNDP

SO… WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? Difficult to manage due to variety of products that

qualify as e-waste, complex material composition, and low collection and recycling rates

e-Waste contains a lot of hazardous materials (selenium, arsenic, lead, chromium, etc) “toxic towers” Air pollution when materials are burned or smelted Ground and surface contaminants Guiyu

Pregnancies 6x more likely to end in miscarriage 7 out of 10 kids have too much lead in their blood Highest level of CA-causing dioxins in the world

Human rights issues Developing countries as “dumpsites” for industrialized

countries (poverty or poison?) Child involvement

WHO ARE THE PERPETRATORS?

Use large cargo ships to carry the containers of e-waste from developed countries to the developing world. They are marked as second-hand electronics to

be sold to people in developing countries with limited access to technology.

Of course, many of these items are non-functioning.

Waste disposal companies Legitimate companies may be involved Some organized crime groups

TRADE ROUTES

RECOMMENDATIONS

Improve awareness along with recycling campaigns (only 18% is recycled)

Certify recycling companies e-Steward (50 certified thus far)

Enact a federal law U.S. should ratify the Basel Convention State laws are too fragmented

STATES WITH E-WASTE LAWS

Source: ElectronicsTakeback.com

REFERENCESCBS News. 60 Minutes: The Wasteland. 30 August 2009. 30 April 2011

<http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5274959n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox>.Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. "Municipal Guidance for Compliance with

Connecticut’s E-Waste Recycling Law." 22 February 2011. Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. 4 May 2011 <http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=2714&Q=412262>.

Greenpeace. "Toxic Tech: The Dangerous Chemicals in Electronic Products." Greenpeace. 30 April 2011 <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/PageFiles/24478/toxic-tech-chemicals-in-elec.pdf>.

"Health Risks of Recycling e-Waste." Perspectives in Public Health (2010): 245.Huo, Xia, et al. "Elevated Blood Lead Levels of Children in Guiyu, an Electronic Waste Recycling Town in

China." Environmental Health Perspectives (2007): 1113-1117.Interpol. "Electronic Waste and Organized Crime -- Assessing the Links." Trends in Organized Crime

(2009): 352-378.Oswald, Irina and Armin Reller. "E-Waste: A Story of Trashing, Trading, and Valuable Resources." GAIA

(2011): 41-47.Peters, Joey. "Regulators, Recyclers and Retailers Build 'Urban Mining' Industry." The New York Times

22 April 2011.Schmidt, Charles W. "Unfair Trade: e-Waste in Africa." Economic Health Perspectives (2006): A232.United Nations Environment Programme. Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary

Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. 5 May 2011 <http://www.basel.int/>.—. "Urgent Need to Prepare Developing Countries for Surge in E-Wastes." 22 February 2010. United

Nations Environment Programme Web site. 30 April 2011 <http://hqweb.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=612&ArticleID=6471&l=en&t=long>.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Transnational Trafficking and the Rule of Law in West Africa. Threat Assessment. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2009.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Statistics on the Management of Used and End-of-Life Electronics." 2 December 2010. Wastes - Resource Conservation - Common Wastes & Materials - eCycling . 29 April 2011 <http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/manage.htm>.