Essay About Electronic Waste

Every year, 41 million tons of electronic wastes, also known as e-wastes, are created (Martin). These wastes are from people’s daily lives and industries. As population grows, more and more people depend on electronics, which increase the amount of electronic waste. All the electronics used for the convenience and appliance of people end up as a piece of junk, and that is what everyone knows. What most people don’t know is that the electronic waste from around the world ends up being exported to developing countries by shipments such as China for recycling. 60 to 70% of electronic waste are gathered to China, especially Guiyu and it affects the environment and health of citizens of Guiyu through land, water and air pollution caused by the “primitive methods” of recycling by the workers of Guiyu (“Guiyu: An E-Waste Nightmare”).
The city of Guiyu, China was a poor rice growing community before electronic waste recycling became the Guiyu residents’ job. The city had changed into an e-waste inferno since 1995, as the higher payments brought them to strip wires and melt electronic

These electronic wastes, which is a precious source for Guiyu, have been imported to Guiyu through shipments. These shipment contains thousands of containers loaded with e-wastes. The batches of e-wastes were sold to brokers. They connect and accomplish the deal in overseas such as developing countries like China. (Wagner 45). Developing countries are mostly like to be a destination for all e-wastes, for the cheap labour and the government’s insufficient treatment of e-waste. The difficulty and expensiveness of recycling e-wastes in a right way has made the advanced countries like US to allow their waste to be exported to developing countries where the residents are ignorant to their environment (Wagner 45, emphasis added). In the meantime, the advanced countries are focusing on their future