New items at e-waste dump linked to lead
By Li Qian |
April 20, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
LARGE amounts of new but defective electronic gadgets manufactured by Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Panasonic and others have been found in a giant recycling hub in Guiyu Town in south China's Guangdong Province and are suspected of causing children in nearby villages to have high levels of lead.
The massive pile of electronic waste consists of old gadgets and other items and parts that were unused or returned for repair, revealed Adam Minter, an American reporter, in the Bloomberg World View blog.
The site processes 70 percent of all the electronic waste in the world, according to the Bund, a Shanghai-based magazine. Guiyu is an outdoor dump site sprawling across four villages. More than 80 percent of local households gather to process the waste there, the Bund reported.
Workers use primitive recycling methods - using highly corrosive and dangerous acid baths - to extract gold from the scrapped metals along the river bank, with virtually no protective equipment, an unnamed industrial insider told the Bloomberg blog.
But they turn a blind eye to the side effects, encouraged by the adage that a van of electronic waste can create a millionaire.
"We just spend 600 yuan (US$95) on a ton of waste Intel chips, but we can extract six kilograms of gold," an unnamed worker said.
The process produces toxic fumes and contaminates water, which poses great health dangers to surrounding villagers.
"If you just stand on a national highway near Guiyu, you will soon feel a sore throat because a strong odor is everywhere," a Greenpeace Organization volunteer, Lai Yun told the Bund magazine.
According to Shantou City University, the 165 children aged between 1 and 6 living in neighboring villages surveyed in recent years all showed high levels of lead in their blood, with more than 80 percent of them diagnosed with lead poisoning.
The local miscarriage rate is six times that of other regions, the Bund reported.
The report noted the irony that HP, Samsung, Panasonic, and Advanced Micro Devices products ended up in one of the world's most notorious environmental disasters while they claimed to engage in so-called green policies to protect the environment.
When asked about the electric waste dump in Guiyu, HP replied it "remains committed to the responsible disposal of e-waste and is thoroughly investigating this matter."
The massive pile of electronic waste consists of old gadgets and other items and parts that were unused or returned for repair, revealed Adam Minter, an American reporter, in the Bloomberg World View blog.
The site processes 70 percent of all the electronic waste in the world, according to the Bund, a Shanghai-based magazine. Guiyu is an outdoor dump site sprawling across four villages. More than 80 percent of local households gather to process the waste there, the Bund reported.
Workers use primitive recycling methods - using highly corrosive and dangerous acid baths - to extract gold from the scrapped metals along the river bank, with virtually no protective equipment, an unnamed industrial insider told the Bloomberg blog.
But they turn a blind eye to the side effects, encouraged by the adage that a van of electronic waste can create a millionaire.
"We just spend 600 yuan (US$95) on a ton of waste Intel chips, but we can extract six kilograms of gold," an unnamed worker said.
The process produces toxic fumes and contaminates water, which poses great health dangers to surrounding villagers.
"If you just stand on a national highway near Guiyu, you will soon feel a sore throat because a strong odor is everywhere," a Greenpeace Organization volunteer, Lai Yun told the Bund magazine.
According to Shantou City University, the 165 children aged between 1 and 6 living in neighboring villages surveyed in recent years all showed high levels of lead in their blood, with more than 80 percent of them diagnosed with lead poisoning.
The local miscarriage rate is six times that of other regions, the Bund reported.
The report noted the irony that HP, Samsung, Panasonic, and Advanced Micro Devices products ended up in one of the world's most notorious environmental disasters while they claimed to engage in so-called green policies to protect the environment.
When asked about the electric waste dump in Guiyu, HP replied it "remains committed to the responsible disposal of e-waste and is thoroughly investigating this matter."
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