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High-Tech Toxic
Trash From USA Found to be Flooding Asia
New Report Documents Export of Cyber Age Nightmare
Seattle, WA., San Jose, CA. February 25, 2002. 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,î said Jim Puckett, coordinator
of BAN. ìThey call this recycling, but itís 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 Europeís
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 ìupstreamî
by mandating that the electronics industry institute ìtake-backî
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 canít allow the
resulting high environmental price to be pushed off onto othersî
said Ted Smith, Executive Director of SVTC. ìRather 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.
END
For Immediate Release
(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
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