The Hindu Business Line : Recycle Bin turns trash yard

AS if the crime wave featuring some of the biggest New Economy firms in the US were not bad enough, hi-tech America now stands charged with dumping "huge quantities'' of hazardous electronic waste in Asian nations with a global coalition of environmental groups recently making public a groundbreaking report titled Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia.

According to the report compiled by the Basel Action Network (BAN), and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), with support from Toxics Link India, Greenpeace China and SCOPE of Pakistan, the US is exporting large quantities of so-called e-waste to China, Pakistan and India where their subsequent handling is undertaken by men, women and children under primitive conditions, causing a serious threat to human and environmental health.

Referring to the investigation underlying the report, Jim Puckett, the coordinator of BAN, is reported to have said: "We found a cyber-age nightmare. They call this recycling, but it's really dumping by another name. Yet, to our horror, we further discovered that rather than banning it, the United States Government is actually encouraging this ugly trade in order to avoid finding real solutions to the massive tide of obsolete computer waste generated in the US daily.''

In addition, BAN has pointed out that the US is the only developed country in the world that has not ratified the Basel Convention, a United Nations environmental treaty which classifies CRT glass, mercury switches, lead found in the solder on circuit boards and other items of computer scrap as hazardous waste and mandates a global ban on the export of hazardous wastes from the world's most developed countries to developing countries.

Even more appalling is the fact that the US has exempted e-waste from its own laws governing exports on the basis of the argument that the tech-trash is being exported for "recycling.''

A press release issued by BAN and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has stated: "The investigation uncovered an entire area known as Guiyu in Guangdong Province, surrounding the Lianjiang River, just four hours drive north-east of Hong Kong where about 100,000 poor migrant workers are employed breaking apart and processing obsolete computers imported primarily from North America. The workers were found to be using 19th century technologies to clean up the wastes from the 21st century.''

"The operations involve men, women and children toiling under primitive conditions, often unaware of the health and environmental hazards involved in operations which include open burning of plastics and wires, riverbank acid works to extract gold, melting and burning of toxic soldered circuit boards, and the cracking and dumping of toxic lead laden cathode ray tubes. The investigative team witnessed many tonnes of e-waste simply being dumped along rivers, in open rivers, in open fields and irrigation fields in the rice growing area....''

While non-governmental organisations involved in environmental activism in many countries — and, more significantly, the US government agency dealing with environmental pollution as also American manufacturers of electronic devices — have, for some time now, been aware of the present and potential dangers in the current e-waste management practices, the impact of tech-trash on the health of the people of China, Pakistan and India has not been very big on Washington's radar.

Thus, even though the US Environmental Protection Agency has gone on record with the observation that computers and other electronic goods constitute the fastest growing tributary to the waste stream in America — about 220 million tonnes a year — Washington is yet to address the issues involved.

A real dilemma

As for the major American manufacturers of electronic devices, they condemn the export of obsolete PCs for "recycling.'' But their dilemma is a real one.

Should hi-tech trash be sent out of the US for use in landfills or consignment to incinerators? The answer, obviously, is that it should not. But can e-waste be re-cycled in a cost-effective manner in the US? The answer, again, is that it cannot — because the country has not developed the infrastructure required for the domestic recycling of e-waste. It just hasn't shown any interest in creating a market-based system in which people draw reasonable wages to recycle e-waste under safe conditions and without causing any harm to the environment.

Things, however, are coming down to the wire now with a legislative committee in California and a government-industry group in Minnesota initiating a debate on electronic recycling which has thrown up, among other suggestions, one involving making consumers pay for cleaning up after them. The electronics industry is vigorously opposed to this measure as it fears that an increase in the sticker price of PCs, television sets and so on will hit sales and drag down revenues.

There is one point, however on which all the parties engaged in the debate are agreed on: environmental safety in computer disposal will mean a ground-up redesign of hardware.

A redesign, however, is not as easy as it sounds, primarily because of the extremely tight deadlines that the industry works under.

Quite simply, given the time constraints, it is almost impossible to get the electronics industry in the US to keep the future in mind while designing products.

A redesign initiative by the electronics industry will, essentially, involve a change in the raw materials that it uses. Lead, for instance, which is used widely on circuit boards and in cathode ray tubes to block radiation. As of now, the industry hasn't been able to come up with a viable alternative to lead.

PC manufacturers could, of course, speed up the replacement of CRT monitors with flat-panel screens ....but this would merely mean the use of a higher level of mercury, which is almost as dangerous as lead.

And, if mercury is banned, the energy-efficient mercury lamps will have to go — which throws up the possibility of an even more adverse effect on the environment caused by a higher release of mercury from coal-fired power plants and, of course, higher costs to the industry and, by extension, consumers.

In the end, the position currently adopted by the Green Design Initiative of Carnegie Mellon University may prove to be the definitive one: "Generally speaking, it will be impossible to remove all toxics from the design of computers.''

Fair enough. After all, there are always trade-offs in the real world. But that doesn't mean that American consumers should be allowed to enjoy indefinitely the benefits of electronic devices, including computers, while some Asian nations get stuck with the waste.

pratap@thehindu.co.in

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