“It’s easy to make electronic products but very hard to dismantle them safely,” says Nigel Mattravers as he watches his state-of-the-art, $54m recycling plant turn crates of washing machines, computers and televisions into shredded chunks of plastic and steel.
Hong Kong has just opened its first government-backed recycling facility for electronic waste as it seeks to lead Asia in tackling a growing global blight that is damaging the environment, threatening human health and lining the pockets of smugglers.
The volume of global ewaste is expanding because of rising incomes in emerging markets and demand for new gadgets and appliances. But only 20 per cent of this waste is properly recycled, according to a UN report. It estimates that €55bn ($65bn) of valuable metals and plastics were thrown away in 2016 — more than the gross domestic product of many countries.
Most of these refrigerators, computers and TVs are dumped in landfill sites or exported — often illegally — to countries with lax regulations and cheap labour forces such as Cambodia and Ghana, where valuable materials are extracted by burning or brute force, releasing toxic chemicals and metals.
“Ewaste is a massive problem,” says Mr Mattravers, the general manager of the Hong Kong plant, a government-funded joint venture between Alba, a German waste management company, and Integrated Waste Solutions Group, which is controlled by the Chengs, one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families.
Hong Kong’s 7.4m people generated an average of 19kg of ewaste each last year, one of the highest rates in Asia, although less than the 25kg produced in the UK and the 19.4kg generated in the US.
About 80 per cent of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory’s waste is exported to developing countries, ostensibly for re-use but often to be broken up in an unsafe manner.
Some of the ewaste that remains in Hong Kong is dealt with in a similar fashion at little-regulated dumps near the border with mainland China.
To tackle the problem, from August, the Hong Kong government will charge importers of electronic goods a levy that goes towards funding the Alba plant and a free collection service for ewaste.
The need for change is clear at Yee Kuk Street, in Hong Kong’s ramshackle Sham Shui Po district, the heart of the informal recycling industry.
As night falls, traders arrive to load old washing machines, TVs and other goods into container trucks for export or break-up in Hong Kong.
Muhammad Babar, one of the traders, says that half of the goods are refurbished and exported to places such as Southeast Asia and Africa, while the rest are broken up “with hands and hammers”.
Mr Babar is unaware of the risks of dismantling refrigerators and TVs in this way. But he fears that the new government scheme will damage the incomes of poor people such as himself, who can earn HK$10-HK$20 ($1.30-$2.60) from each large item they pick up.
Jim Puckett, executive director of the Basel Action Network, an ewaste NGO, says governments and manufacturers have a responsibility to stop this activity and pay the full cost of proper disposal.
At the Alba facility, LCD TV screens are removed from their casings by a robot arm in a controlled atmosphere to ensure that all of the potentially harmful mercury contained within can be extracted.
Workers at the plant, which started operations in October, have to check which of nine different chemicals are used in each refrigerator or air conditioner before they can remove and store them.
Even simple washing machines need to be disassembled with care so that the concrete blocks used to weigh them down can be disposed of properly before the steel casing is shredded.
Mr Mattravers says the key to progress is not just more recycling facilities but better collection services.
Vanessa Gray of the International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency that monitors ewaste, says more countries are following the lead of places like the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden by implementing legislation to require proper disposal of ewaste.
But she says it is “more difficult for large countries with dispersed populations”. Although two-thirds of the world’s population is covered by some form of ewaste legislation, the recycling rate is still running far behind, at only 20 per cent.
The Basel Convention, which is meant to restrict the cross-border movement of hazardous waste, has been signed by 186 countries. But there is no enforcement mechanism.
Mr Puckett says the Convention is undermined, like many other international agreements, by the failure of the US to ratify it.
“It’s a big problem that one of the world’s most wasteful countries is not part of this treaty,” he says.
China, by contrast, has just taken a step forward. It has banned the import of low-grade waste and intensified border controls to stop smuggling, causing backlogs of waste paper, plastics and electronic goods at dumps in Hong Kong and around the world.
“As China clamps down other countries will have to do it properly,” says Mr Mattravers.
But with the ewaste problem expected to worsen as more products become wired for internet connectivity, Mr Puckett is calling on manufacturers to redesign goods so that they last longer and are easier to repair or dismantle.
“It’s all about designing for what society really needs,” he says.
Additional reporting by Nicolle Liu
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