E Waste Pollution Essay

876 Words4 Pages

Solutions to the E-waste Pollution Problem in Guiyu
Neonates in Guiyu, the largest e-waste processing center in China, showed significantly higher rates of adverse birth outcomes such as preterm delivery, still-births and low birth weight (Li & Wang, 2012). It does not appear as a coincidence but the result of the excess level of heavy metals (Li & Wang, 2012). E-waste stands for electronic and electrical waste, which always contains heavy metals and non-biodegradable organics (Thompson, 2012). Due to weak government management and incorrect individual values, the majority of the e-waste in Guiyu is disposed in a rudimentary way, posing high risk to ecological environment and residents. To protect residents’ lives from e-waste pollution, collective actions from stakeholders could be taken, including setting up a government e-waste controlling department in Guiyu, promoting education through NGOs and …show more content…

As the saying goes, only by starting with the source can one solve the problem thoroughly. Once the lifetime of an individual device is lengthened, the amount of e-waste will be dropped significantly. It might help solve the problem from the sources. However, consumption is always the original motivation of technology advancing. Thus, decreased consumption might slow down the speed of technology development.
To conclude, e-waste pollution problem in Guiyu does need more social concerns and collective actions from stakeholders since ecological environment and residents’ lives deserve priority compared with economic development. Setting up a government controlling department and promoting educations through NGOS could not solve the problem substantially but flourish in a short term. Nevertheless, enhanced manufacture designs could play an important role in the longstanding plan. Hopefully, the e-waste pollution problem can really be solved in the foreseeable

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