Large amounts of electronic waste are collected to various recycling centers in China, e.g. Guiyu in Guangdong Province, Wenqiao in Guangxi Province or Taizhou in Zhejiang Province. The recycling operations consist of scrap sorting, heating of printed circuit boards to recover lead solder and electronic components, using concentrated acid solutions to leach and recover aluminium, gold, copper, platinum, and other metals. The activities also include burning and smouldering of cables to recover copper wires. Finally at the end of all stages, much of the waste and unsalvageable components are simply burned in an uncontrolled manner. These activities often take place alongside rivers and rice fields. Such uncontrolled recycling processes of circuit boards and computer casings release brominated flame-retardants and the heating, leaching and burning operations release dioxins and furans into the environment and expose workers associated with the activities to these substances Chlorinated dioxins and furans are well known environmental contaminants with a multitude of harmful environmental and health characteristics. Dioxins and furans are included in the original list of global POPs as agreed in 2001. In its 4th meeting in May 2009 the Conference of parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants included penta and octo- brominated flame-retardants in the list of global POPs. The problems of the e-waste sector has already been identified by the authorities and there are regulations in China for addressing the sector. One part of the regulation is restricting e-waste imports to China. Other parts of the regulations are covering technologies for e-waste recycling. However, compliance with these stringent requirements reduces or eliminates the profitability of e-waste processing business. Thus, it is expected that small scale and informal artisanal e-waste recycling would continue with consequent POPs releases and human exposure. E-waste processing also generates employment among the economically disadvantaged people in the area, which justifies considering socio-economic dimensions in addition to technologies and releases. The aim of the initiative is to map out the current e-waste practices in selected cities in China and investigate the e-waste processing practices and technologies used an the environmental releases and exposure to processors and the general population. The investigation would also be extended to the artisanal and small-scale e-waste processing operations.
While assessing the situation at selected sites, restricted sampling for determining contaminant concentrations would be undertaken and in addition to investigating the socio-economic considerations of the actors in the e-waste processing sector. Particular consideration would be given to livelihoods of small scale processors of e-waste.
The initiative is a joint undertaking between Government of China/Ministry of Environment (Office for Stockholm Convention Implementation/ BCRC China (Tsinghua University ), Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and United Nations Development Programme. The result of the initiative is to gain understanding of the contamination and health status at active e-waste processing sites, the socio-economic and employment considerations in the sector as well as scoping for possible further assistance in the area of e-waste processing. As the target contaminants are among the Stockholm Convention POPs, GEF co-financing would be expected for further phases of the initiative. As such, a GEF Project Initiation Form (PIF) is expected as one of the outputs of the work. In this context a socio-economic expert for undertaking the scoping mission will be recruited by UNDP Country Office in Beijing. | 