A worker in Guiyu uses a lighter to burn plastic off a copper wire Burning plastic releases toxic chemicals unprotected by regulations Poor workers without any other way to earn a living are recycling the waste in dangerous conditions The informal recycling trade damages the workers health and the environment Guiyu and other places where e waste is recycled informally have earned a horrific reputation from news stories and documentaries But the stories are also misleading in some ways Exported electronics are not all waste to be dumped on developing countries
that do not want them Shipments of electronics have been tracked to Ghana in Africa The electronics were mostly reused by people there These reused electronics bridge the so called digital divide The digital divide is the large difference in people's abilities to get computers and Internet access in developing and developed nations The problem is also not that developing countries are recycling e waste The materials that are recycled have value or the recyclers would not take the time to extract them It is also important that the materials in e waste be recycled to avoid having to mine new materials which requires energy and causes environmental damage Recycling e waste may be the only way some workers can earn a living The problem is with how e waste is recycled and the question is how to ensure the safety of workers and the environment WASTE VERSUS SCRAP Although the term e waste is commonly used it is not completely accurate E waste is actually one form of what is known as scrap or discarded materials that are suitable for recycling Some of the most valuable forms of scrap are metals There is a worldwide trade in scrap that is an important part of the economy Trading and processing scrap provides work opportunities for many people Trading and recycling scrap metal helps avoid mining new metal It takes much less energy to make new products out of recycled metals than newly mined metals Scrap trade makes economies more efficient and conserves limited resources A MOUNTAIN OF E WASTE The world produced 46 1 million short tons 41 8 million metric tons of e waste in 2014 This is about the weight of 200 000 large passenger jets enough jets to line up between New York New York and Los Angeles California four times This waste is made up of mostly large and small appliances such as microwaves and dishwashers but it also includes
E waste produced in 2014 included 3 3 million short tons 3 million metric tons of computers cell phones and other information technology equipment 10
devices such as computers The total amount has been growing each year Asia produces most of that waste followed by the Americas and Europe But on a per person basis both Europe and the Americas lead in producing e waste Their citizens produce four to five times as much e waste per person as people living in Asia E waste production will continue to increase Extracting its materials for reuse and providing jobs for workers will become more and more important The countries that are best suited to recycle e waste are those that need the raw materials most Those countries are developing countries such as China and India which are manufacturing the world's electronic products and building their own cities Those products buildings highways and electric systems need the steel copper and aluminum in e waste However the technology of recycling e waste and building greener products must be developed to make recycling safer The responsibility for this rests on both developed and developing nations Many existing laws are meant to force countries that produce e waste to find ways to safely recycle it In the coming years nations will have to cooperate to solve this growing problem
