Black market e-waste

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the late 1980s, developed countries signed the so-called Basel Convention, which prohibited the export of their used household and electronic appliances. But it turns out that recycling e-waste on site is long and expensive. This is how a shadow market for electronic waste emerged, which, according to El Mundo, is comparable in turnover to the drug business.

The main reason why it was initially forbidden to export used electrical equipment is the high content of lead, mercury and cadmium in it. Only the USA did not ratify the agreements (but they adopted their own norms). It was planned that all electronic waste would be recycled on site using waste-free and “green” technologies. But in terms of the economy, they did not agree very much - it is impossible to recapture investments in a short time, which means there are no investors.

At the same time, China began a new round of transition to a market economy. The volume of trade increased - and it was economically reasonable to fill containers stuffed with goods in one direction on the way back …

This is how the shadow market for the recycling of electronic waste appeared in the third world countries, where hundreds of thousands of people work every day.

Europe spends 130 million euros a year on imports of rare earth and precious metals contained in the same household and electronic appliances, and 75% of Western electronic scrap simply disappears from official disposal routes. So it's cheaper.

Confusing scheme

An outdated computer from the nice city of Leeds, UK, you will surely find in a landfill in the Republic of Ghana, West Africa. Although everything seems to be fine in Britain with the legislative part, from 1.4 million tons of electronic scrap thrown out there, up to 1.1 million tons can simply disappear into thin air.

From Germany, according to experts, 100 containers of electronic waste are taken out per week - they are hidden in such ships:

And although the local police have cool videos of them catching such contraband on boats, this is a drop in the bucket.

Usually old devices and equipment qualify as humanitarian aid to third world countries or second-hand goods. And, in fact, under this guise they are sent to Ghana, India, Brazil … And the same China.

Up to a hundred illegal containers with e-garbage arrive at the port of Hong Kong every day. With all the desire, it is almost impossible to track them all among the 63 thousand containers unloaded here per day. And bribes all the way, you know.

So 56% of all world electronic scrap accumulates in one place - the Chinese regional center of Guiyu in the industrial region of Guangzhou. Dirty recycling of phones and computers gives the owners of this business $ 3 billion in profit a year.

Where our e-trash dies

The average user in the States will pay $ 20-25 for recycling a computer. This amount is sewn into the purchase, and many manufacturers also have recycling programs. But programs are usually tied to intermediaries, and they already decide what is more profitable for them.

For example, in the United States there are only three factories for the processing of radio electronics, but only in 2008, during the inspections, 43 firms were identified that were selling decommissioned monitors “to the left”. And tracking of the entire path of unnecessary equipment is still only in pilot projects.

This is how the “product” ends up in Guia. Here, an average of $ 20 will be extracted from the computer scrap.

Guiyu is a whole hub. Landfills, warehouses and workshops are scattered throughout the city and villages on an area of 55 thousand square kilometers.

For comparison: the area of Moscow is “only” 2, 5 thousand square kilometers. Moscow and the region - 49, 5 thousand square kilometers.

The work here is organized according to the principle of a waste sorting plant. With one “but” - no environmental standards. Basically. Having worked here, you can lose a kidney - over time, when cadmium and lead accumulate in the blood.

On the other hand, for 3 dollars a day, thousands of hands will do what in “our” world will cost 3 million dollars for just one technological line, to which skilled workers must stand.

Because the mechanism for non-manual analysis of electronic waste into fractions has not yet been invented.

Here are some footage from the documentary 'The E-waste Tragedy' (Cosima Dannoritzer, 2014)

It all starts with a junkyard

Here, all the filling is separated from the cases: metal and plastic from them can be immediately put into circulation.

The rest is taken to the city and villages. Everyone uses it, including personal scooters.

In the villages, electronic waste will be re-sorted again.

And they will be transported to different workshops.

Here, for example, old monitors are dealt with. Each can contain 3-4 kilograms of lead.

Within the villages, in general, everything is often divided according to the principle of settlements in old Russian cities.

But where we have Goncharnaya Street, here is a prestigious "plate-burning".

After all, boards are the most expensive commodity.

Details are removed from them with scissors, tweezers or pliers. And if something does not disconnect, the board is put on the stove and they wait for the smoke to go out and the solder melts.

The pliers operation is then repeated and the resulting parts are sorted by value and type.

A similar "production" is being set up in landfills in the open air. Every day up to 100 huge bonfires burn in the vicinity of Guiyu.

They throw everything in them, and then take away the valuable with their hands.

Then they sift again - and it's done without any pliers.

They do the same with wires in order to extract copper from them.

By the way, the photo with the child was taken already in Ghana, where the second largest electronic waste dump is located. There are also many Chinese workers there.

Then all the collected non-ferrous metal is sent to artisanal laboratories, where it is “cleaned” with acid.

From 5 thousand mobile phones you can extract, for example, a kilogram of pure gold and 10 kg of silver. Their cost will reach 40-43 thousand dollars.

$ 8 from a gadget is already less than you can “scrape” out of a computer. But it's still worth it: people will throw away 160 million phones in a year.

Plastic is also important - it is often bought for Foxconn, which works with Apple, Dell, HP and others.

Therefore, for example, gutted plastic boards are also cleaned: they take laundry baskets, put everything there, and dip them into barrels with chemicals.

Often, at the end of a work shift, whatever remains in the barrels is simply dumped into roadside ditches.

Cartridges from Canon, Epson, Xerox and others are smashed with a hammer and the remaining toner is removed by hand. Many workers have not even heard of toner vacuum cleaners. Interestingly, the same Canon has a processing plant in China. But it is often more profitable for intermediaries in the chain to give the cartridges to the side.

As a result, everything, literally everything that is left from burning or unusable, dumps near the river, urban and rural canals.

Then they take water from here for domestic needs:

Real garbage swamps have already formed in the river. But the fish is caught and eaten from here.

But drinking water is brought to Guia by tank trucks from other places, at least 60-100 kilometers from the garbage hub. And street vendors bring some of the water from a spring at the foot of the nearest mountain.

This is how $ 3 billion is laundered a year.

According to various estimates, Guiyu employs between 150,000 and 300,000 people.

For reference: the Chinese state monopoly for the extraction of coal (the most harmful production, covering 70% of the internal demand for electricity), employs only 210 thousand people.

Someone gets $ 3 a day on a six-day work week and 12 o'clock shifts.

Someone in the age of fifty works 16 hours seven days a week - this is how you can make $ 650 a month and earn your children for higher education.

The woman takes the stone and breaks the screen. Nearby, her child is sorting cathode ray tubes from cables and boards. From them you need to gut, and then burn out everything that has at least some value.

In the literal sense of the word - burn out. From the tank, where it all melts, acrid multi-colored smoke is pouring down. But they don't have much to lose.

Most of these people came to Guia on purpose. Some admit that they do not work in factories near their homes, because child labor is more severely restricted there.

And what is happening with us

We "produce" in Russia about 750 thousand tons of electronic waste per year - about 3, 75% of the global volume.

And we don't really know what to do with all this.

More precisely, there are nine factories in Russia capable of processing radio electronics. Two of them have lines just for computer technology. But they all work with legal entities.

However, if you heard about the promotions of one large store “we take out your old equipment”, then this is the UKO company. She then sorts and disassembles the devices, and then sends the parts for processing to factories.

See how they work.

At the entrance, everything is sorted out manually - I say, there is no other way yet.

Then the cases are pressed, and the boards are sorted by value (motherboard is the most expensive) and sent in bags to factories.

Already there, several boards will be randomly taken out of the bags - and the whole batch will be judged by them.

In the future, UKO plans to buy that same processing line for 3 million in order to safely separate the parts from the boards.

But this is Africa. Countries on this continent are the second largest e-waste receivers after China.

Manufacturers themselves are already interested in the African region: at least because of the price of labor. Dell will collect e-garbage from Africa at its plant in Kenya, for which it will install 40 collection points for individuals across the country: they say, hand over in exchange for money.

Dumping such garbage here from Ghana, where most of the e-waste is deposited, is hardly possible (you look at the map), but at least it is possible to catch on to neighboring countries.

And almost the most serious about the issue of e-waste recycling was taken in Turkey.

There is one private company, head of which is responsible for the entire process throughout the country. And it seems to be working conscientiously.

And in huge India, where 70% of e-waste is strangers, there are entrepreneurs who solve the problem. Attero Recycling, for example, collects e-waste from 500 cities in 25 states across the country.

But they are supported by investments by large equipment manufacturers who use products as scrap, since the problem of e-waste cannot be solved without long-term investments and clear legislation.

For example, in Russia, a small fine is provided for electronics thrown away anywhere. And then, if someone pays attention to her.