The world generates more than a billion tons of solid waste each year according to the United Nations, which warns that the waste is growing faster than the rate of
urbanization.
And a big part of that growth can be blamed on electronic waste: laptops and hard drives, cellphones and
components either obsolete and outdated, damaged or discarded. One place where much of it winds up is in
China. Earlier this year the country began cracking down on illegal imports of e-waste a "Green Fence" of sorts and it's led to the suspension of nearly 250 import licenses.
Now, some believe the new campaign could possibly be sparking a global renaissance in sustainable recycling.
Whether you call it waste, rubbish, trash or simply scrap, the reality is the world is sinking under a pile of it.
And the fastest growing offender according to the United Nations is E-waste - also known as electronic trash.
"This electronic waste can pose huge impacts on water and some of them have lead and hazardous materials,"
Earth Justice attorney Adrian Martinez says.
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates a quarter of America's e-waste is recycled. And according to The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a US non-profit
trade association, about 40 percent of U-S scrap is exported to China.
"Our recyclables and a lot of our electronics, they actually go to a small city in China, they're not actually recycled here," Cora Chong, a recent graduate majoring in environment sciences from University of California, says.
And customs officials claim those recyclables are often poorly sorted, contaminated, even hazardous, creating an environmental issue for an entirely different country to
then manage.
"A lot of time they say our demand is fueling c02 emissions," Chong says.
5 in China, so now China's cracking down, on scrap, launching Operation Green Fence in an effort to curb solid
waste contamination imports and strengthen its environmental standards.
And now E-waste recyclers in America and Europe are scrambling to clean-up their scrap, ship it elsewhere or risk losing their import licenses, because the Chinese
market for poorly-sorted and contaminated recyclable-waste has closed for business.
American-based E-waste recycler Rixi Group, isn't concerned about the economic impact of the stricter
regulations since China has long banned contamination but it was rarely enforced until now.
"Actually in China, the law there's nothing changed from this year to last year, but what exactly change the people execute more strictly right now," Xi Wang, President of
Rixi Group says.
Xi Wang (She Wong) says other scrap traders wouldn't be so concerned either, if, like his company, they'd simply obeyed the law in the first place.
"I have R-2 certification, that mean responsible recycler so right now is the time to stop these things. As a Chinese citizen, I agree with that. I agree with that," Wabg says.
The question now is, could this Chinese crackdown spur a new sustainable recycling movement in the west, where garbage and scrap made in America, is also re-used, re-
cycled or re-conditioned here too.
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