Comment pubs.acs.org/est
Extended Producer Responsibility for E-Waste There’s no justice when powerless migrant workers become exposed to toxic metals, PCBs, and flame retardants unknowingly. But the alternative is not good eitherlandfilling the e-waste. We are burying significant fractions of the world’s nonrenewable rare earth elements like platinum and indium in landfills at concentrations far greater than the ore from which they are mined (Betts, ES&T, 2010, doi:10.1021/es100814q). Landfills are becoming the future archeological sites of our throw-away culture. How do we stop the flood of e-waste? About 5.6 billion cell phones exist in the world alone. The deluge of e-waste flows from rich to poor countries but the picture is changing rapidly. Developing countries will soon generate the majority of waste as they become part of consumer culture, too. Each new product generation (3G, 4G...) results in prematurely discarded electronics before their useful life expires. For example, the switch to digital television in the U.S. in 2009 and the Super Bowl football game resulted in the purchase of 3.3 million new TVs. Plasma screen TVs, iPods, FAX machines, and computer printers are fast approaching the grave, never to be reused or reincarnated again. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is still a good mantra, but current practices of e-waste recycling need serious improvement. Simply reusing the electronic products and extending their life is not the ultimate answer either. It decreases the life-cycle burdens of the product (Eric Williams, ES&T, 2010, doi:10.1021/es903350q), but the precious materials must still be recovered at a later time. Until we are able to design electronic products for disassembly and recycling, we will not succeed. Manufacturers must take the lead. The Principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is key here. Similar to “take-back” laws in Europe, manufacturers must assume responsibility for their product for its entire life-cycle. If companies deem they cannot take back the product, then they must at least mark it clearly for regulated recycle of the materials (e.g., RFID tags). The e-waste industry in China, India, Africa, and elsewhere benefits society through recycling of valuable, scarce materials. But the manner in which it is done today is unconscionable. If the United States cannot even ratify the Basel Convention, we must depend on manufacturers to assume more responsibility. Cooperation among governments will also be needed, but let us compel manufacturers to take the lead where governments have faltered.
Only poor people in developing countries are managing it, and the rest of us ignore it as “out of sight, out of mind”. E-waste is a public health nightmare for workers recycling the material but also a prime opportunity for corporate responsibility. Recently, I had the chance to tour mega-city Guangzhou in south China, capital of the most infamous province for recycling electronic waste, Guangdong. While visiting ES&T Editorial Advisory Board member, Eddy Zeng, with the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, we toured one of the world’s most concentrated areas for e-waste sorting and separation, a 5 km stretch of road with one small recycling plant after another. By definition, all these businesses are illegal because China long ago ratified the 1992 Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, forbidding importation of hazardous waste. Also several other national and provincial laws prohibit the collection, storage, transport, and disposal of e-waste in China (Ni and Zeng, ES&T, 2009, doi:10.1021/es802725m). But after one morning exploring these small operations, it struck me that the world will soon drown in a sea of electronic waste unless something is done to make more sustainable the entire reverse supply chain. In Guangdong, most of the e-waste that we saw came from the U.S., Japan, and Canada. Workers were stripping plastic from copper wires using nothing but pliers while sitting on a small stoolmost were using gloves (some protection) and seemed relatively happy with their job. But we also saw laborers from the countryside without any gloves or protection, kneeling in dust and debris, sorting through copper wire, capacitors, recyclable plastics, and aluminum (see photo). Most of the “companies” were small businesses employing family members to manage the operation and rural laborers to do the work. They did not want us to take many photos or bring attention to their individual enterprises. Eddy Zeng inquired of an owner of one small business about the futurethe owner said that he knew the operation would not last much longer, perhaps one or two more years before the Provincial government would shut it down. When Eddy asked what he would do then, he smiled and said, “Maybe I will get a few pigs and become a farmer”. (Editor’s note: the area is heavily contaminated with metals and persistent organic pollutants from e-waste operations.)
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Jerald L. Schnoor,* Editor-in-Chief AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Published: June 25, 2012 © 2012 American Chemical Society
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/es302070w | Environ. Sci. Technol. 2012, 46, 7927−7927
