Presentation on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Save the world from turning into an electronic graveyard Refer http://www.slideshare.net/prajaktatalathi/report-on-electronic-graveyard-guiyu for report

4. Electronic Graveyard
Guiyu

5. Guiyu
• A town in the Chaoyang
district of Guangdong
province in China
• Situated on the South
China Sea coast
• 1.5 million tons of e-
waste

7. Some Facts
• Work 16-hour-days dis-assembling
• Small, family-run workshops
• 5,500 Total businesses
• 150,000 workers

8. Health and Environment Hazards
• Recycling operations are toxic and dangerous
• 88% of children suffering from lead poisoning
• Higher-than-average rates of miscarriage are also
reported in the region
• Use of bare hands to rip of metals, printer toners etc
• The soil has been saturated with lead, chromium, tin, and
other heavy metals.
• Discarded electronics lie in pools of toxins that leach into
the groundwater, making it so polluted that the water is
undrinkable
• Piles of ash and plastic waste sit on the ground beside
rice paddies and dikes holding in the Lianjiang river; Once
a rice village, the pollution has made Guiyu unable to
produce crops for food
• Dust samples analysed and lead and copper were 371
and 115 times higher, respectively

9. Health and Environment Hazards
Using Bare hands for
Scavenging
Burning of houses to hide open burning of
metals

15. • Not that simple!
• Massive revenues to local governments trumps human
rights
• Over 150,000 e-Waste workers would be unemployed
• Revenues Earned: Tariffs + Taxation = 90% of
regional government’s revenues
• Shortage of raw materials for major industry in China
Shut down Guiyu?

16. Other Factors
• In countries like US,
workers recover $1.5-2
• Additionally, in 2011 the
United States threw away
about 130,000 computers
every day. One hundred
million cellular phones are
thrown out annually
• Hazardous Incentives 8$
• Other developed countries
involved are also doing the
same, hence all the junk is
sent to China, Ghana, India

17. Recent Trends and Actions
• Central Government Initiatives in vain
• Work of activist groups and increasing awareness of the
situation
• Non-profit organizations like Greenpeace and the Basel Action
Network
• Safety measures are being followed and proper disposal means
are getting adopted

18. What can be done?
• Environment Friendly raw material
• Reuse judicially – gift products, reuse casings etc
• Electronic items from Asia are not following proper
standards
• Create beautiful scrap articles similar to gardens and
houses which are being made using plastic waste

19. Other Places of e Waste Junk

20. Thank You
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Prajakta Talathi
GSEP13CMM031