Hong Kong has become a haven for exporters of electronic waste in the United States, according to an environmental group that claims the SAR has replaced the mainland to become “ground zero” for toxic electronic materials.
A two-year investigation by Seattle environmental group Basel Action Network, attached 200 GPS trackers on broken electronic items in the US, and found many ended up in dumping grounds in the New Territories.
Of the 200 trackers, 65 were found to have been exported out of the US. Out of those 65, 37 were exported to Hong Kong, making it the most popular destination for the harmful electronic waste. By contrast, eight were detected on the mainland. “These findings are very different than our findings over the past decade, when it was observed that the vast majority of e-waste from North America went to China, and most of that to Guiyu, a township and region in Guangdong Province,” the report states. Previous research from 2002 put e-waste exports to the mainland in the spotlight.
The research project, supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Senseable City Lab, is the first of its kind. Previous efforts commissioned by the US federal government to quantify e-waste being exported out of the US have only been based on trade reports or surveys from recyclers claiming to act responsibly.
BAN, by contrast, installed the trackers in printers, flat-screen monitors and cathode ray tube monitors. These items were then delivered to publicly accessible e-waste recycling drop-off sites across the US.
The research found that many of the items – which contain toxic materials such as lead and mercury – were being exported out of the US, with the group estimating 65 of the devices to be illegal shipments due to the laws in the importing country or regional government. “Ironically, it appears that Hong Kong, usually thought of as one of the most technologically and economically advanced areas of China, has not enforced the Chinese import ban as diligently as mainland China has done, and appears to have, in fact, become a new pollution haven,” the report reads.
The report comes as Hong Kong legislators call upon the government to better regulate and investigate dumping grounds on the SAR’s outskirts, which they suspect to contain hazardous electronic waste.
To read the full story, visit http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1977148/hong-kong-becomes-dumping-ground-us-e-waste.