Seattle, WA., San Jose, CA
A groundbreaking
investigation by an international coalition of environmental organizations
reveals that huge quantities of hazardous electronic wastes (E-wastes) are
being exported to China, Pakistan and India where they are processed in
operations that are extremely harmful to human health and the
environment.The organizations -- Basel Action Network (BAN) and Silicon
Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) with support from Toxics Link India,
Greenpeace China and SCOPE (Pakistan) -- have released a full report on the
investigation entitled: Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia.
The investigation uncovered an entire area known as Guiyu in Guangdong
Province, surrounding the Lianjiang River just 4 hours drive northeast 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 tons of the E-waste simply being
dumped along rivers, in open fields and irrigation canals in the rice
growing area. Already the pollution in Guiyu has become
so devastating that
well water is no longer drinkable and
thus water has to be trucked in from
30 kilometers away for the entire population.
"We found a cyber-age nightmare," said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN.
"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.
BAN referred to the fact that the United States is the only developed
country in the world that has failed to ratify the Basel Convention, a
United Nations environmental treaty which has adopted a global ban on the
export of hazardous wastes from the worlds most developed countries to
developing countries. Further, the U.S. has actually exempted toxic E-waste
from its own laws governing exports, simply because the material was
claimed to be destined for recycling.
BAN and SVTC are calling on the United States to follow Europe's example
and immediately implement the global ban on the export of hazardous wastes
from the United States to developing countries and likewise to solve the
E-waste problem "upstream" by mandating that the electronics industry
institute "take-back" recycling programs, toxic input phase-outs and green
design for long-life, upgradeability and ease of recycling.
"Consumers in the U.S. have been the principal beneficiaries of the
high-tech revolution and we simply can't allow the resulting high
environmental price to be pushed off onto others" said Ted Smith,
Executive Director of SVTC. "Rather than sweeping our E-waste crisis out
the backdoor by exporting it to the poor of the world, we have got to
address it square in the face and solve it at home, in this country, at its
manufacturing source."
Basel Action Network (BAN) is a global network of activists working for
global environmental justice and against trade in toxic wastes, toxic
technologies and toxic products. Visit: www.ban.org
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) is a 20 year community-based
coalition that advocates for cleaner production, and sustainable
occupational and environmental health practices within the electronics
industry. Visit: www.svtc.org. For a copy of the full report visit the
above websites.
(Video material and still photos are available)
For more information contact:
Jim Puckett, BAN: Phone: 1.206.652.5555
Ted Smith, SVTC: Phone: 1.408.287.6707 x305
