Electronic wastes generally come from three major sectors. One is the individuals and small businesses. Electronic products are wasted not only because they are broken but to upgrade to a new one. Second are large corporations, institutions and governments. Because it is illegal to dump the computers in a landfill, these wastes go to the recycling market. And finally, it is the Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). OEMs generate electronic wastes when units coming off the production line don’t meet quality standards. Some of the computer manufacturers contract with recycling companies to handle their wastes, which often is exported.
Computer recyclers will sell those in a store those are valuable. Rest of them will be broken down and sorted according to the type of waste. These sorted materials such as wires, cables and circuit boards will be sold to brokers who arrange the shipping container that bound for Asia. There are three primary reasons why E-wastes are increasingly flooding Asian countries. The first reason is the low cost of labor (China $1.50 per day). The second is because the environmental and health protections are not well regulated. At last, in the US, export of hazardous wastes are not legally prohibited.

Specific amount of the E-waste is not really known. The U.S. government uses the global harmonized Tariff System (HTS) to monitor the import and export transactions occurring within its boarders. Under the HTS, transactions are classified under almost 8000 product categories. But there are no categories correspond to computer or electronic waste.
The studies of Carnegie Mellon University concludes that in the year 2002, 12.75 million computer units will go to recyclers in the U.S. It is estimated that 80% of those goes to Asia.
Data of the U.S. International Trade Commission indicates that the most highly exported products to China are electronic integrated circuits and micro assemblies. Also, the data from the International Trade Center UNCTAD/WTO tells that top five countries exporting the products categorized as plastic waste and scrap are U.S., Mexico, Japan, Netherlands and France. On the other hand, top five countries importing those products are China, Hong Kong, U.S.A., Canada and Italy.

*E-waste in Guiyu, China

Guiyu is located about an hour’s drive west of Shantou City in the Chaozhou region of Guangdong Province. Most of the E-waste arrives at the port of Nanhai. And these E-wastes are loaded in trucks for scrapping in Guiyu. Since 1995, Guiyu has become a poor rice-growing to a booming E-waste village. While rice is still growing in the fields, all of the available space has given way to providing hundreds of E-waste recycling shelters and yards. It is said that it is difficult to estimate the number of the employees engaged in the E-waste recycling business in Guiyu because of the fluctuating migrant force. Fact is that most of the labor force working in the recycling operations comes from agrarian regions. The average wage is equivalent to $1.50 per day. It is true that local economy has come to depend on computer garbage. And people in Guiyu have made a living out of waste collection.

Most of the recycling activities involve physical dismantling by hammer, screwdriver and bare hand. Materials such as copper, steel, plastic, aluminum, printer toner and circuit boards were being separated for recycling. Workers without any protective equipment or special clothing are opening the cartridges and wiping the toner. Black ash exists everywhere because of the open burning of wires to recover copper. The result is that many tons of E-wastes material and process residues are dumped in open fields, riverbanks, ponds and rivers.

The test result of water sample taken in 2000 where circuit boards had been processed and burned in the past, revealed lead levels that were 2,400 times higher than WHO Drinking Water Guidelines. The local residents are claiming that the water has become foul tasting. It is not known whether the government has warned the residents not to drink it.

There are about 100 people living in the village, where small children playing among the ash heaps. Drinking, cooking and washing is done with local ash contaminated surface waters. Moreover, the village lies near fish ponds which provide the villagers with their food. It is likely that food source is contaminated from the pollution. Many people have developed respiratory and skin problems. A local school survey found that 100 of the 1000 students have severe asthma.
E-wastes in Guiyu is an one example of waste trade and perhaps a view of the tip-of- an -iceberg. It is not known if Guiyu is the only E-waste center in China nor it is known if other centers exist. But it is true that toxic wastes are serious problem on both human health and environment aspect.

3. Related Cases

• Basel -Basel Agreement on Waste Trade
• Auwaste- Australia Hazmat Exports Law
• Taigwar -Taiga Forest and Weyerhaeuser
• Hong Kong -Hong Kong Waste Fee
• Camwaste -Toxic Dumping by Formosa Plastics Group in Cambodia
• Bengali -US /Bangladesh Waste Trade
• Somalia -Somalia Waste Imports from Italy
• Basmex -Mexico and Basel
• Florido -El Florido Power Plant and Pollution
• Khain - Khain Sea Episode
• Turkey -Turkey Waste Imports
• Nigeria -Nigeria Waste Imports from Italy

*WTO
According to the WTO homepage, they say that “At the moment, there are no definitive legal interpretations, largely because the questions have not yet been tested in a legal dispute either inside or outside the WTO.” But the combined result of the WTO’s trade agreements and environmental agreements outside the WTO suggest that first, countries concerned should cooperate to prevent environmental damage. Then the complaining country can act to protect its own domestic environment. Under the WTO agreements, standards, taxes or other measures applied to imports from the other country must also apply equally to the complaining country’s own products and imports from all other countries. If the other country has also signed an environment agreement, then what ever action the complaining country takes is not the WTO’s concern. The situation that is unclear is that when other country has not signed. Some environmental agreements say countries that have signed the agreement should apply the agreement even to goods and services from countries that have not. Whether this would break the WTO agreements remains untested because so far no dispute of this kind has been brought to the WTO. One proposed way to clarify the situation would be to rewrite the rules to make clear that countries can cite an environmental agreement when they take action affecting the trade of a country that has not signed. When the issue is not covered by an environmental agreement, WTO rules will be applied. That is, first, trade restrictions cannot be imposed on a product purely because of the way it has been produced. Second, one country cannot reach out beyond its own territory to impose its standards on another country.

There are about 200 international agreements outside the WTO, dealing with various environmental issues. They are called multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). About 20 of these include provisions that can affect trade. For example they ban trade in certain products, or allow countries to restrict trade in certain circumstances. The committee notes that actions taken to protect the environment and having an impact on trade can play an important role in the environment agreements. But it also points out that trade restrictions are not the only actions that can be taken, and they are not necessarily the most effective.

Table: Other International Agreements outside the WTO

*Basel Convention
Basel Convention was created in 1989. In 1994, they agreed to adopt a total ban on the export of all hazardous wastes from rich to poor countries including the recycling. The Basel Convention calls on all countries to reduce their exports of hazardous wastes to a minimum. See BASEL in related case.

Beside Basel Convention, organizations like the Bamako Convention, the Waigani Convention, and the Izmir Protocol were formed to fight the toxic waste trade at the regional level.

*Bamako Convention
"The Bamako Convention on the ban on the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within Africa," adopted on 29 January 1991, in Bamako, Mali. This prohibits the import into Africa of any hazardous, including radioactive, wastes, as well as products which have been banned, cancelled or withdrawn from registration for environmental or health reasons.

* Waigani Convention
"The Convention to Ban the Importation into Forum Island Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and to Control the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific Region" was adopted on the 16 September 1995, in Waigani, Papua New Guinea by the South Pacific Forum States. The treaty prohibits Pacific Island from importing all hazardous and radioactive wastes from outside of the Convention area. Australia and New Zealand are prohibited from exporting hazardous or radioactive wastes to all other South Pacific Forum Island countries.

*Izmir Protocol
The Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution, (Barcelona Convention) adopted the "Protocol on the Prevention of Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea by Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal" (Izmir Protocol) on 1 October 1996 in Izmir, Turkey. The protocol prohibits the export of hazardous and radioactive wastes to non-OECD countries and those Parties that are not members of the European Community are prohibited from importing hazardous and radioactive wastes.

The first attempt to regulate and monitor the trade of hazardous waste was The Basel Convention. Basel Convention was created in 1989 and in1994, they agreed to adopt a total ban on the export of all hazardous waste form rich to poor countries including recycling. With the exception of the U.S., governments around the world consider E-waste components hazardous wastes and those countries are tightly controlling their disposal and export.

*U.S. law and Chinese law
U.S. is the only developed country in the world that has not ratified the Basel Convention. Moreover, it is legal to export hazardous waste. Rather than controlling toxic materials, numerous exemptions are now available to avoid regulations.
China on the other hand, was one of the first global proponents for an international ban on the export of toxic waste from developed countries to developing countries. In 1996, China passed the Law in the Prevention and Control of Solid Waste Pollution to the Environment. Which are, (a) prohibit the import of solid wastes which are unusable as raw material, and (b) strictly regulates the imports of solid wastes that can be used as raw materials. It is also including that anyone who is dumping the wastes in the territory of China will be ordered to transport back and may be imposed a fine. In 2000, they announced the new law not to allow the entry of the following electrical appliances.

• computers, monitors, and CRTs
• copiers
• microwave ovens
• air conditions
• video cameras
• electric cooking devices and refrigerators
• telephones
• video games
• televisions and picture tubes
  

*General information of E-waste

E-wastes contains toxic substances such as lead and cadmium in circuit boards; lead oxide and cadmium in monitor cathode ray tubes (CRTs); mercury in switches and flat screen monitors; cadmium in computer batteries; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in older capacitors and transformers; and brominates flame retardants on printed circuit boards; plastic casings, cables and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cable insulation that release toxic dioxins and furans when burned to retrieve copper from the wires.

Table: Cause of the Toxic Substance

19. Exporters and Importers: Many and China

V. Environment Clusters

20. Environmental Problem Type: Land pollution

21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species

See "Story of Guiyu, China".

22. Resource Impact and Effect: High and Product

23. Urgency and Lifetime: Low and 5-10 years

24. Substitutes: Use of biodegradable products: Corn

*Use of biodegradable plastic in notebook computers

Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. announced the world’s first eco-friendly notebook computer which is using plant-based biodegradable plastic. This technology will be used in Fujitsu’s FMV-BIBLO NB computer. They expect to apply it to the entire housing in fiscal 2004.

*General information of biodegradable plastic

Plant-based biodegradable plastic is a polylactic acid polymer derived from the starch of corn, potatoes or other plants. The result has about the same strength and rate of shrinkage as the regular plastic used in computers.
It can reduce environmental problems in using this plan-based material. That is a cut of 20~45% of carbon dioxide in the process of manufacturing. And those computers ending up in a landfill, the plastic will naturally change into carbon dioxide and water by the action of Bacteria. Moreover, it can reduce petroleum based products. Since petroleum is a non-renewable resource, this can be the substitute for the raw material

25. Culture: No

26. Trans-Boundary Issues: Yes

27. Rights: Yes

28. Relevant Literature

• ASCII. 5 July 2003.
• Basel Action Network.
• Fujitsu Pioneers Use of Biodegradable Plastic in Notebook Computers. 2002.
• Greenpeace China.
• HOT WIRED NEWS. 23 May 2003.
• Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.
• Toxics Link India.
  

1/2001