Scientists at Zhejiang University in the Chinese province of the same name have revealed a new global threat facing mankind. They took air samples from one of the largest e-waste dismantling areas in the country and examined their effects on human lung epithelial cells. They discovered that the air contains pollutants that affect the lung cells. Normally, one gene is always “sleeping”, but under the influence of pollutants it becomes active and triggers inflammatory processes, which lead to the formation of cancer cells.

The discovery by Chinese scientists confirms that air pollution is the main reason that keeps the death rate on the top from cancer diseases, says a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexei Yablokov:

“Electronic waste has become a serious problem across the world in the past 7 or 8 years. A huge amount of used or even workable electrical goods, such as computers, televisions, printers and mobile phones are being dumped. All this inevitably starts emitting poisonous dioxin under sunrays. There is no absolutely safe technology of e-waste disposal. There is a need to create a specialized sector for reprocessing and recovering waste. The EU and the U.S. are now developing this trend. Russia should prepare to face this challenge,” Yablokov said.

The European Union is the first to make an attempt to solve the e-waste issue. Ten years ago, it obliged all producers of consumer electronics to bear the responsibility for their disposal. Similar laws have been adopted in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. However, it later became clear that it’s cheaper to shift the production to other countries than spending money on dismantling them. It’s no mere chance that there was a boom in computer and mobile phone assembling enterprises in China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Turkey. In China, these enterprises are mainly located in the Zhejiang province, which is the worst cancer affected region in the country now. The situation is almost identical in the neighbouring province of Jiangsu, which is specialized exclusively in consumer electronics.

An attempt by the U.S. government to prompt the producers to dispose of their computers has ended in failure. At present, the U.S. disposes of eight out of ten computers abroad. The used computers are loaded in containers and shipped to Africa and Asia, especially to China and India. Using primitive techniques, gold, copper and other non-ferrous metals are extracted from them. The unnecessary plastic is often burned in the open air.

China, India and several other countries have tried to put an end to the influx of e-waste legislatively. However, the laws are working badly. The foreign e-waste continues to be dumped in Asian countries. The Basel convention that came into force in 1989 is also inactive. It has not been signed by the U.S and several developed nations in the West. In fact, this is the only global agreement that imposes a ban on economically-motivated export of e-waste to the countries that have no advanced technology for its utilization.