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Herald

CHINA, 19 March 2002-- SQUATTING in a ramshackle hut, six little girls hum as they swing hammers over their tiny shoulders, smashing computer chips. The smallest, Yao Hong, 4, deftly plucks shiny copper coil from the shattered components, straightens it and throws it into a bucket, oblivious to the possible dangers. Electronic waste can contain 1000 different substances including lead, cadmium, chromium and mercury -- heavy metals which are highly toxic. This brew of toxic substances can damage nervous, kidney and reproductive systems, while some of the metals contain carcinogens. For years, so called "e-waste" from richer countries has found its way to China, where armies of rural poor rummage through computer monitors, central processing units, printers, toner cartridges and other hi-tech trash to sell what they can to recyclers. Despite the Basel Convention, which in 1994 banned the export of hazardous waste from rich to poor countries, electronic waste from the US and to a lesser extent Europe, South Korea and Japan has ended up on Chinese shores, environmentalists say. The US has long resisted adopting the Basel rules. In Chaoyang, in southern Guangdong province -- China's richest -- entire farming families have turned into scavengers over the past decade for extra cash. Unwanted electronic junk is seen in open rice fields everywhere, on riverbanks and in ponds, and some families in the area have stopped drinking well water because it has taken on a yellow hue. Environmental groups Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, citing recycling industry sources, say as much as 80 per cent of electronic waste collected for recycling in the US is shipped to Asia, including countries such as India, Pakistan and China. Every year about 10 million computers are discarded in the US alone, and the figure will reach 12.75 million in 2002, the two groups say. Asked about the report last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said: "The conclusion of the report was very clear -- it asked the US Government to take concrete measures not to ship these computers abroad. "On the Chinese side, we have not confirmed the details but a host of Chinese laws including customs laws and the environmental laws all clearly stipulate that the environment and people's interests in China should be protected."

But Chinese junk dealers say shipments normally dock in Guangdong, are sorted in warehouses and then trucked to nearby villages. The Yaos' hut in Yaosuwei village is much like dozens of others. Mounds of spent printer cartridges, modems, disk drives, toner casings, circuit boards and wires are strewn inside and out as workers plough through them, stripping out everything that is worth anything.

Plastics, metals and other recyclable materials lay in heaps everywhere, waiting to be trucked to smelters. For the Yaos, about 600g of copper earns three yuan (72) and 600g of plastic about 0.30 yuan (8). In a market in nearby Beilin village, the recycling huts are interspersed between fresh meat and vegetable stalls. Armed with pliers, perspiring women in front of small furnaces retrieve chips from circuit boards immersed in pools of molten solder. A thick acrid stench hangs constantly in the air. "This whole business has been going on more than 10 years, although it became really widespread about five to seven years ago," said Chen Zhongnan, 68, who lives nearby. "The last two to three years were very bad when they started burning all the waste. It's so bad for health and so our village leader stopped them, but some still continue doing it. "But we don't complain, we need the money."

Those who have made good in the brisk business can now afford to hire hands from poorer provinces further north, who are paid 10 to 30 yuan ($2.40 to $7.20) a day. People involved in the trade openly admit their fears about the possible health risks. In Chendian village, housewife Chen Jing says her family -- also in the junk business -- no longer drinks from their well as the water has become yellow due to pollution. They now buy drinking water. "I do worry about my child's health, but we can't just depend on our paddy fields, that is not enough," she said.