sustainability

Electronic Waste in Beijing

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Electronic Waste in Beijing

Introduction

Beijing is China’s most iconic city that boasts of being the country’s capital and business centre. Technology has seen the growth of the city since colonization to see its great size we see today. However, the growth of the city has created a sustainability problem in the village of Dong Xiao Kou. Dong Xiao Kou village is located in the northwest direction of the outskirt of Beijing Town and is home to at least 500,000 poor immigrants who work in the city. This village has become Beijing’s corner of rubbish where the town dumps all the types of waste from metal to electronics and plastic. The dumpsites in the area have become the source of livelihood for most of the immigrant's families living in the town who mainly process electronic waste to acquire valuable parts for (Tong, 2017). However, due to the type of recycling and processing done in the site that is primarily small-scale, unprotected and unregulated, the processing of e-waste in Dong Xia Kou in Beijing has become a sustainability problem that worries both private and public entities.

Adverse Effects and Affected Stakeholders

The effects of e-waste disposal in Dong Xia Kou causes large-scale consequences on not only the people of the village but also those living in its vicinity. The most important effects of the involve the community and people living in the village where the improper dismantling of electronics in the dumpsites causes a lot of pollution of the air, water and soil in the area and injuries to people working therein. The results of these is an increase in diseases among humans and reduced quality of water and food grown. The effects of high concentration of heavy metals such as gold, cadmium, and lead and other water toxicants have led to a reduction of fish in the sea and river waters of Beijing (Abdulrahman, Gunasekaran & Subramanian, 2014). It has also caused a decline in productivity of rice field in the area which may create food security problems in future.

While these effects have grown over time, it has become very hard to stop the illegal trade due to dispersed effects and the fact that the e-waste dumpsites are a source of livelihood for families. While the people working in e-waste dumpsites are aware of the dangers of doing so, they are often reluctant of leaving the trade due to reliance on the practice for living. The decision by the city to stop small-scale e-waste dismantling has been met with protest as people fear losing jobs. According to Tong (2017) at least 2000 immigrants come to Dong Xia Kou every year to look for jobs. Consequently, there is a continuous increase in dependence on the e-waste dumpsites by the community. This means that if action is not taken immediately, future closure of the Dong Xia Kou dumpsite will have greater social challenges that it can have at present.

Causing Activities, actors and technology

The primary cause of the current situation in Dong Xia Kou is capitalist business people in China who have opted for cheap methods of e-waste processing. While there exist improved technology to dismantle electronic waste that does not pose a health risk to humans or create excessive wastage, large companies take advantage of cheap labour provided by immigrant workers in Beijing to increase their revenues through small-scale processing by use of hands. As a result of the cheap cost of disposal, developed countries export their e-waste to China which increases the danger and poison the environment in the country.

The government and some of its agencies are also to blame for the increased waste disposal in Dong Xia Kou. Despite there being rules against trade with e-waste, China continues to import more than 70% of e-waste in the world (Wang et al., 2015). This trade that is unlawful and done through corrupt measures degrades the environment in Beijing. The underlying factor behind the increased degradation of the Beijing environment is the growth of technology industry which is the primary source of electronic waste. With increase and advances in technology involving the creation of computers, fridges, televisions, phones and other electronic accessories by people from all across the globe, there is an addition in the amount of e-waste in Beijing.

Benefiting Stakeholders

The chief beneficiaries of the dumping of electronic waste in Dong Xia Kou are immigrants and owners of small-scale processing industries, and electronic consumers from all parts of the world. Immigrants workers benefit from the Dong Xia Kou dumpsite as they get a source of livelihood. These are mainly poor people who lack other methods of earning a living in the city. However, these poor immigrants end up being used by rich tycoons who pay them peanuts to process the waste at the expense of their health (Wang et al., 2015). The rich tycoons are the main beneficiaries of poor e-waste processing. They increase their revenues by getting cheap labour in the village without taking responsibility for their activities on the environment.

Electronic consumers from all parts of the world are also beneficiaries of the cheap e-waste disposal in Dong Xia Kou. It is estimated that dismantling of e-waste in the US would cost five times the cost it does in China. Consequently, consumers pay less for their electronic waste to be blasted in China than in the US. In Beijing, 90% of residents do not pay for the processing of waste dumped (Abdulrahman, 2014). Large electronic manufacturers also benefit from the cheap e-waste processing as they pay less to get their waste dismantled. These people are the chief reason the Dong Xia Kou exist.

Underlying Motives, needs, preferences, and values

Economic interest and the need to make money is the chief motive behind the degradation of the Dong Xia Kou environment. Most of the people contributing to the increase in the illegal dumping of e-waste in Dong Xia Kou are interested in creating revenues at the expense of the environment and human life. Poor immigrants, with the need for money to take them through life, come to dumpsite to earn a living. They are motivated by basic needs where they have to live. Chinese capitalists who mainly live away from the dumpsites are motivated by greed for money and to increase the amount of revenue they get from improper processing. Motivated by the desire to make more money, they avoid expensive methods of dismantling waste.

China is an extremely cheap place for the world to dump e-waste due to the cheap labour for dismantling it. Developed nations bring their e-waste in the country to cut on the cost of processing it in their homes. There are also greedy government officials in China who despite the law not to allow business tycoons to bring import (Steuer, 2017). Finally, the Chinese government is also pressed by the need to create jobs for the poor. Immediate closure of the dumpsite is likely to bring social challenges such as unemployment, crime, and even reduce revenues for the government if taxes and consumption went down. This makes the government give a blind eye to the poor processing of the waste in Beijing.

Rules, Norms and laws

Rules include the distribution of fairness and justice among members of the society. They include factors like equitable opportunities, intergenerational and regional justice. In terms of rules, they may be formal or informal. Formal rules are what the society considers to be right or wrong and provide consequences for wrongdoing through a governance structure. Formal rules are what constitutes the law. On the other hand, while informal rules are created by the society, there exist no governance structure for punishing or rewarding for their obedience or disobedience. Informal rules are norms and breaking them may cause the society to look down upon an individual without extreme consequences.

The primary rules that play part n the Beijing sustainability problem is the Basel convention the Beijing ratified that outlaws are trading in e-waste. The business community in China has systematically broken this law. Beijing had also required its residents to pay for e-waste processing, but the legislation found poor reception. One informal rule that plays a part in the Beijing waste challenge in the value of economic development over environmental protection. The residents of Dong Xia Kou have decided to ignore the importance of the environment while pursuing economic good (Wang et al., 2015). It is also a norm for the society to put health before economic development. Natural law requires that the overall benefits of an action of an event overcome the harms created. This is not the case in Beijing as we see people create money at the expense of both their health and that of others. The Dong Xia Kou is unethical and will lead to more challenges that are benefits.

Capacity, Skills and Competence

Trade in e-waste started in Dong Xia Kou two decades ago after small-scale electronic dismantling was found economical. While informal waste processing does not recover all the valuable resources in electronics, it is cheap and increases the effectiveness and ease of getting resources from the waste. Use of hand-made items such as harmers to get valuable components of electronics makes it simple for the manufacturers to easily get such components as gold from electronics without using a lot of money. The high rate of e-waste generation in China and other parts of the world also play a part in creating an opportunity for getting a lot of useful electronic parts as possible (Song & Li, 2014). Instead of using a lot of resources to get valuable pieces of electronics such as gold from their hidden parts, people can just get the readily available metals from the equipment. The bulk allows for the creation of large-scale without doing a lot of work or using a lot of resources.

There is also the presence of a market for the resources recovered from the e-waste in the Chinese economy. China is home to many electronics companies that buy metals such as gold, lead and cadmium for use in manufacturing. There is, therefore, a ready market for small amounts of these metals in the door fronts of the producers. There are no middlemen who would otherwise reduce the cost of selling the scrap. This motivates the small-scale e-waste processor to make an effort towards providing the resources. Despite there being laws against e-waste trade there are stills a lot of the material coming from developed nations (Song & Li, 2014). Poor capacity by the Chinese government to regulate the importation of the waste creates an opportunity for people in business to utilize it to their advantage. There is also no competition from formal e-waste processors for illegally imported e-waste which makes the informal sector to boom.

Resources

The most important resources that allowed the benefiting stakeholders to take action include the availability of cheap labour, money, market and lack of regulations. When the informal scrap processing started in Dong Xia Kou, there were no regulations to dictate the nature of processing or importing of e-waste. This allowed rich economists to create many small-scale blasters in the village and make money from the unregulated business. The ease of accessing market also made it easy for the rich businesspeople to create money by selling items that they had made (Orlins & Guan, 2016). The access to financial resources allowed the business people to control the political powers to their will. The rich tycoons bribe corrupt government officials to allow the importation of illegal e-waste in the country. They can bribe and get large quantities of e-waste from developing countries to make money in China.

Low cost of labour in China is also an important resource that contributes to the degradation of the Dong Xia Kou village of Beijing. China’s labour cost is among the lowest in the world which opens up the country for manufacturing and other industries. This makes it easy to make money out of small-scale manufacturing and processing activities (Orlins & Guan, 2016). Finally, transportation infrastructure is also a resource that contributes to the Dong Xia Kou e-waste dumping challenge. The proximity to the sea makes the village easy to obtain imported e-waste. Also, there are good roads from Beijing city that ease transportation of waste to the village.

External Factors

The major external factor that affects the problem and ability t change the situation in the Beijing Dong Xia Kou village involves economic challenges. While China’s economy has grown at a rate of between 8 and 10 percent in the past two decades, this rapid rise is not without challenges (Song & Li, 2014). The countries development model has led to increase in social problems that are hard to solve and may lead to severe crises in future. The government has taken up a model that promotes investment which attracts a lot of foreigners. However, wealth accumulation does not match this fast growth of the economy in the country. Consequently, there are a vast number of resources that are not utilized but the community (Orlins & Guan, 2016). For example, while there are many modern and better-equipped industries for processing e-waste, they are not used due to the expenses involved. A majority of people in Chinese languish in poverty while a few enjoy the great number of resources in the country. These people offer cheap labour at the expense of their health in informal industries. Closing the informal sector will hence live the vast majority of the members of the public unemployed.

The second challenge is the increased gap between the rich and poor in the country. The development model in China is so different from the political structure. While China is a politically socialist country, the economic model promotes capitalist ideas that advocate for the growth of personal wealth (Steuer, 2017). Consequently, the rich, governed by political notion continue to make more wealth while the poor, controlled by socialist law, continue to grow. This increases the gap between the deprived and the rich where the former are exploited by the later. The poor will work and live under extremes of conditions like the Dong Xia Kou village to make money for the rich. Having the control of the economy, the rich will make decisions on how to make money and what the economy produces. The people in the village are slaves to the rich people living beautiful villas of Beijing.

References

Abdulrahman, M. D., Gunasekaran, A., & Subramanian, N. (2014). Critical barriers in implementing reverse logistics in the Chinese manufacturing sectors. International Journal of Production Economics, 147, 460-471.

Orlins, S., & Guan, D. (2016). China's toxic informal e-waste recycling: local approaches to a global environmental problem. Journal of Cleaner Production, 114, 71-80.

Song, Q., & Li, J. (2014). A systematic review of the human body burden of e-waste exposure in China. Environment international, 68, 82-93.

Steuer, B. (2017). Is China’s regulatory system on urban household waste collection effective? An evidence-based analysis on the evolution of formal rules and contravening informal practices. Journal of Chinese Governance, 2(4), 411-436.

Tong, X. (2017). From “Waste Village” to “Urban Circular Economic System”: The Changing Landscape of Waste in Beijing. In Carbon Capitalism and Communication (pp. 71-82). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Wang, J., Liu, L., Wang, J., Pan, B., Fu, X., Zhang, G., ... & Lin, K. (2015). Distribution of metals and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in sediments, soils and plants from an informal e-waste dismantling site, South China. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 22(2), 1020-1033.

Root Causes Immediate Causes Effects

( External Factors Poor Economic Model High rate of Unemployment Large Gap between the poor and the rich The rich control China’s Economy ) ( Benefits Employment for immigrant workers Income for businesspeople Cheap disposal of e-waste )

( -Import e-waste from developed countries -Corrupt government officials to allow e-waste dumping in Beijing -Use unsafe methods to get resources from e-waste -Release toxic waste in rivers, air and soil ) ( Resources Cheap Labor Strong Financial Muscles Ready Market for products ) ( Capacities Skills and competence Use of hand-held tools Ease of e-waste acquisition Bulk quantities Market access Poor government regulation ) ( Rules Basel Convention Value of environmental protection Natural law ) ( Motives needs, preferences and values Economic gain Availability of cheap labor Maximizing profits Pressure to create jobs - ) ( Adverse Effects Soil, air and water pollution Death of fish in large water bodies Reduction in Agriculture production Human and anima diseases Dependence on unfit sources of income Immigration and overpopulation )