[8] The major sources of e-waste processed in China are households, domestic institutions such as schools and hospitals, government agencies and businesses, and equipment manufacturers.
Cheaper labor and lax environmental standards attracted e-waste from developed countries that could save much of the cost of processing the waste domestically.
According to United Nations data, about 70% of electronic waste globally generated ended up in China,” said Ma Tianjie, a spokesman for the Beijing office of Greenpeace.
[14] The formal recycling process practices safe methods of handling the waste and allows for the recovery of precious raw materials, which can later be reused in other manufacturing.
[3] E-waste is collected from enterprises or manufacturers and safely stored in recycling facilities until they are manually dismantled and sorted into categories of what to discard and what to recover.
[12][3] The smaller electronic parts are further separated into their specific materials using water and magnets, and finally, the desired components can be recovered and restored for future use.
[14][15] Unlike China’s formal methods, informal e-waste recycling is extremely unregulated and unsafe, remaining a profitable market due to cheap labor and a high demand for the disposal of electronics.
[18] The informal recycling process is often done in the open and uses extremely rudimentary methods such as stripping metals by hand, burning toxic materials, disposing parts in bodies of water, and more.
[7] Studies conducted in China report that the soil, air, water, and entire ecosystems near informal recycling sites and e-waste landfills are highly contaminated by these dangerous substances.
[5] The air around the vicinity of informal e-waste recycling was found to have particles with high amounts of heavy metals, 100 times greater than normal levels.
Studies have found contaminants in the soil of rice fields and duck ponds with toxicity levels failing to meet many international agricultural safety standards.
[4] Firstly, those who reside around informal sites experience second-hand exposure to the hazardous e-waste remnants through inhalation, digestion, and skin contact.
[20] Informal workshops are usually not well-ventilated and workers wear little-to-no protective equipment, resulting in direct exposure to toxic substances that can cause severe developmental problems and have been linked to increased chances of cancer.
[9][20] Studies on informal e-waste workers in China showed extremely high levels of hazardous materials in their systems - the highest concentration in humans ever recorded.
[15] The town has up to 5,000 workshops treating up to 70 percent of the world's e-waste, and employing around 100,000 people; electronic waste lines most of the streets and reports indicate that the smell of burning metal and plastic are constantly in the air.
[16] Effective February 1, 2000, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) passed a regulation entitled Notification on Importation of the Seventh Category of Wastes.
These new set of laws also required treatment plants to adopt pollution prevention principles during the entire disposal process in order to minimize negative environmental impacts.
[17] The Chinese government has long been aware of the environmental and health consequences of electronic waste,[26] and was one of the first global supporters of banning exports of e-waste to developing countries.
[30] While electronic devices and waste are collected in different Chinese regions and impart various environmental and health problems on the area, many activists argue that the distributors and source countries are not being held significantly responsible.
While international regulations have increased domestic recycling programs in these source countries (such as the United States), shipment of Electronic Waste has not completely been eradicated and remains a significant global issue.
[31] Along with national legislation, several provincial programs have been set in place to address e-waste management issues in more urgent regions, such as the Guangdong, Qingdao, Beijing and the Sichuan provinces.
In Guiyu, the government promoted technical upgrades in informal workshops by replacing coal-fired grills with electrical heaters that would reduce the amount of leaked toxins when treating circuit boards.
In June 2009, China initiated the "Home Appliance Old for New Rebate Program", which first launched in nine cities and provinces considered to be more economically developed.
[9] Some US recycling plants have found that shipping their hazardous e-waste overseas for processing is much less expensive than handling it in the states where there are strict labor, environmental, and safety regulations.
The definition of some of these key terms, “technical capacity,” “necessary facilities,” “environmentally sound and efficient manners,” and “wastes required as raw material” can be rather controversial in practice.
[15] Despite the longstanding international and national legislation regulating transnational trade and domestic recycling, informal e-waste economies are still clustering in many Global South countries.
[15] Additionally, the focus of the Basel Convention is on the regulation of the body of countries, whereas illegal waste transfer is usually conducted by private firms or individuals.