Emerging nations produce more electronic waste than the West; By 2017, the annual piles of waste would be the weight equivalent of 200 Empire State Buildings or 11 Great Pyramids of Giza

Emerging nations produce more electronic waste than the West

OSLO — China and other emerging economies have overtaken Western nations in dumping old electronic goods, from television sets to mobile phones, and will lead a projected 33 per cent increase in the amount of waste from last year to 2017, a United Nations-backed alliance said in a report yesterday.

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OSLO — China and other emerging economies have overtaken Western nations in dumping old electronic goods, from television sets to mobile phones, and will lead a projected 33 per cent increase in the amount of waste from last year to 2017, a United Nations-backed alliance said in a report yesterday.The report, the first to map electronic waste by country to promote recycling and safer disposal of parts that are often toxic, shows how the economic rise of developing nations is transforming the world economy — even in terms of pollution.

“The e-waste problem requires attention globally,” said Mr Ruediger Kuehr of the UN University and Executive Secretary of the Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) initiative. StEP is run by UN agencies, governments, non-governmental organisations and scientists.

From 2012 to 2017, the weight of electronic goods discarded every year worldwide is projected to rise to 65.4 million tonnes, from 48.9 million last year, with most of the increase in developing nations, said StEP.

By 2017, the annual piles of old washing machines, computers, fridges, electronic toys and other goods with an electric cord or battery would be the weight equivalent of 200 Empire State Buildings or 11 Great Pyramids of Giza, it said.

Some waste from rich countries ends up in developing nations, where many people work in hazardous conditions for low wages dismantling it.

Refuse from emerging countries, as well as Russia and other former Soviet-bloc nations, overtook totals from nations such as the United States, those from the European Union, Japan and Australia around last year, StEP data showed.

In that year, the West produced 23.5 million tonnes of waste and all other countries 25.4 million — a shift from the previous estimates for 2007, when the West accounted for most of the refuse, StEP said.

By 2017, waste from the West would rise to 28.6 million tonnes, far less than the 36.7 million from other countries — a side effect of the economic rise of emerging nations such as India, Brazil and South Africa.

“Although there is ample information about the negative environmental and health impacts of primitive e-waste recycling methods, the lack of comprehensive data has made it hard to grasp the full magnitude of the problem,” said Mr Kuehr.

Consumers could help with better recycling, especially at Christmas, he said. Waste can be valuable if recycled. One study estimated that a million mobile phones can yield 24kg of gold, 250kg of silver, 9kg of palladium and more than nine tonnes of copper.

Yesterday’s report also showed that the average person on the planet produces 7kg of electronic waste every year. Americans were among the highest with 29.8kg each.

Separately, US-based experts trying to track the fate of refuse said about two-thirds of US electronic waste is collected for reuse or recycling and that only 8.5 per cent of the collected units are exported.

Bigger electronic items, especially TVs and computer monitors, were exported to nations including Mexico, Venezuela, Paraguay and China, it said. Smaller items often went to Asia.

Mr Jeremy Gregory from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a co-author of the report, said it was hard to track trade because the waste is often merely described as “mixed metals” on import documents.

StEP urged nations to adopt clearer trade descriptions. REUTERS