A Chinese child sits amongst
a pile of wires and e-waste. Children can
often be found dismantling e-waste containing
many hazardous chemicals known to be potentially
very damaging to children's health.
23/05/2005 — What happens to your mobile or
computer when you throw it away? Did you know
it could end up dumped in Asia and scrapped
by hand in appalling conditions? This shouldn't
be happening, so we are pressuring one of
the biggest bad guys, Hewlett-Packard, to
come clean -- by delivering a truckload of
its own electronic waste to its doorstep.
Because our mobile phones, computers and other
electronic products are made using toxic ingredients,
workers at production sites are at risk of
exposure and the products cannot be recycled
safely when they are discarded.
Many are routinely, and often illegally,
shipped as waste from Europe, US and Japan
to Asia because it is cheaper and easier to
dump the problem on poor countries that have
low environmental standards than to tackle
it at home.
Chinese man smelts computer parts in the
open air to extract metals. Open air burning
of computer waste releases large amounts of
toxic fumes.
Conditions where electronic waste (e-waste)
is scrapped in southern China are truly shocking.
One of our scientists, Kevin Brigden, who
has visited his fair share of the world's
toxic hotspots, described the scene: "The
conditions in these yards are horrific. In
Guiyu, southeast China, I found acid baths
leaching into streams. They were so acidic
they could dissolve a coin in just hours.
Many of the chemicals used in electronics
are dangerous and can damage people even at
very low levels of exposure."
We are conducting ongoing investigations
into scrap yards in India and China, where
we have found people taking the e-waste apart
by hand and being exposed to a nasty cocktail
of dangerous chemicals.
Take a trip through the electronics lifecycle
to discover why it's a problem and what can
be done about it:
Why Hewlett-Packard?
Taking toxic chemicals out of products makes
reuse and recycling of electronic products
safer, easier and cheaper. This is the first
step in tackling the problem of e-waste.
We have asked all the top mobile phone and
computer companies worldwide to clean up their
act. Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson and Nokia
have already taken a first step by committing
to eliminate toxic flame retardants and PVC
plastic from some of their products.
But Hewlett Packard has made no such committment,
nor have Apple, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, IBM,
LG, Motorola, Panasonic, or Toshiba. At a
major technology expo in Beijing we built
a statue using the companies' e-waste collected
from scrap yards in China to demonstrate the
problem these companies are causing.
Once toxic chemicals have been eliminated
from products, manufacturers should take full
life cycle responsibility for their products
and, once they reach the end of their useful
life, take their goods back for re-use, safe
recycling or disposal. This is what we are
campaigning for: to turn back the toxic tide
of e-waste.
