Asia - the world’s dumping ground?

By Alice Kok | 25 September 2008 | Permanent link | 1 comment

A recent United Nations survey sheds light on the United States’ harmful disposal of e-waste in Asia. As regional authorities give more attention to greening their IT infrastructure, you have to ask what the point is unless agreements are put in place to ensure that the entire technology lifecycle is greened - and not just the initial 3-4 years of active use.

China is the country worst affected by US companies’ off-shoring of their e-waster, according to the UN report, closely followed by South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam and India.

In this instance, one man’s bread is almost literally another man’s poison - recycling old IT assets sounds pretty virtuous if you’re in the American Mid West, but if you’re ripping out the toxic guts of old IT assets in the outskirts of Shenzhen, it’s not quite so environmentally friendly. Sure, there’s a degree of reuse - but take a look at the photos of where this work is being done, and all notions of minimising environmental impact go out of the window.

According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) “A substantial quantity (of the estimated 20 million pounds of waste) ends up in countries where disposal practices are unsafe to workers and dangerous to the environment.”

There can be no ‘green IT’ until the recycling of technology assets is safe and clean enough to be undertaken in America’s backyard. Governments in the region need to focus not just on power consumption - what you do when it’s time to refresh your equipment is as much a part of the green IT jigsaw puzzle, as energy-saving features.

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