DUBAI, 15 October — Readers of this column know that generally I try to use humor to describe the foibles and follies of information technology and the IT industry. But today I must be serious in my presentation because a terrible tragedy is happening in Asia and IT hardware is at its heart.
I am writing this column from GITEX Dubai, the largest IT trade show in the Middle East. I’ll be bringing you a complete report on the exhibition next week. Here at GITEX, vendors of IT hardware have hundreds of thousands of products on display. They want Middle Eastern businesses and consumers to buy more and more. Monitors, servers, printers, switches, drives, cables — if you can imagine it, there’s a vendor here to provide it. But did you ever wonder what happens to all that IT hardware when it gets old, damaged or outdated?
Some people just throw it in the trash, but this is not a good solution since the component materials in IT hardware don’t degrade like biological waste. In the Middle East we haven’t grappled with this problem because until recently we didn’t have a lot of IT junk to throw away. Times have changed and we have reason to be concerned. You see, for its disposal to be handled properly, IT hardware must be recycled and reprocessed at specially designed and staffed facilities. In the Middle East we don’t have any of those facilities.
You might be wondering then what happens to our old IT hardware. Well, consumer IT junk is mostly sitting in closets and on rooftops all over the Kingdom. Some consumer IT waste has been dumped in Saudi municipal landfills where it will uselessly take up space forever. There are estimates that about 70 percent of heavy metals found in landfills come from electronic discards. These heavy metals and other hazardous substances found in electronics can contaminate groundwater. Unlike consumers, some large Saudi businesses have used a different strategy in their disposal of IT junk. Many enterprises have sold the old IT hardware as scrap. Sounds innocent? Well, right now the health of the population and the environment in Pakistan are being damaged because of such decisions. That is the conclusion of a report called, “Exporting Harm, The High Tech Trashing of Asia,” prepared by the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) with contributions by Toxics Link India, SCOPE (Pakistan) and Greenpeace China.
Junk IT hardware comes under the heading of electronic waste or e-waste. Other electronic equipment such as mobile phones, stereos and microwaves are also e-waste. The disposal of e-waste is a huge issue globally. The problem is difficult to solve because e-waste is composed of over 1,000 different substances including lead, beryllium, mercury, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants. These ingredients are not easy to separate for reuse or recycling. Many of the component parts of e-waste are so hazardous that they pose both and occupational and environmental threats.
It is important to emphasize that the real solution to the problem of e-waste will eventually be found at the point of design and manufacture. Producers of IT hardware have not behaved responsibly by eliminating hazardous materials in their products or designing them for disassembly. Governments could and should encourage the environmentally responsible manufacture of IT hardware by creating and enforcing legislation that would compel vendors to manage the end-of-life disposal of their products. Such laws would prevent many downstream problems.
In the meantime, there are thousands of old computers stored in closets around the Kingdom and more joining them daily as people upgrade their equipment. Most folks hold on to these machines thinking they are potentially valuable. The truth is somewhat different. According to Exporting Harm:
“While more recent model computers are valuable on the reuse market, the net worth of older computers at the point of disposal, not counting the costs of “recycling”, is very small. For example, in an old computer: 5 pounds of steel could be worth $0.25; the central processing unit (cpu) with its gold tips and wiring (if the chip itself isn’t worth anything on the re-use market) could be worth $1; the motherboard with its metal (gold, silver and copper) connectors — $2; cable (that are 30 percent copper in PVC sheaths) could be worth $0.09; the hard drive which is about 15 percent aluminum is worth $0.10; and the monitor yoke which can be 60 percent copper is worth $0.80.”
So, not only is the old machine almost worthless, it also costs quite a bit to separate out the components of value due to poor design and manufacturing. This makes old computers very difficult to re-process without someone paying for the costs of doing so. Few vendors or consumers are willing to voluntarily pay for the reprocessing and recycling costs of e-waste, so many developed countries now legislate the issue. Even with someone paying for recycling, developing countries with low wages are the venue of choice for the recycling of e-waste.
According to Exporting Harm, computer waste/scrap comes into Sher Shah in Karachi, Pakistan from countries including Australia, Japan, England, the United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sher Shah is a principle market for second hand and scrap materials. Conditions in Pakistan for e-waste reprocessing appear to be even worse than those found in China. Exporting Harm states that in Pakistan, circuit boards are de-soldered using blowtorches with no fans set up for ventilation and acid operations take place indoors without ventilation.
Pakistani businessmen purchase the e-waste from Dubai and forward it to Karachi in sea-going containers. Investigators working to prepare the Exporting Harm report found that typical costs of a scrap purchase in Dubai were around 35-40 Pakistani rupees (65 US cents) per kilogram, including all expenses. After reaching the port, custom officials scatter the waste out and impose duty on various items according to their value and use. Thereafter the material is brought to large warehouses. Other than the duty officers, there is no authority to question the import or subsequent recycling and disposal in Pakistan.
The computer waste is bought for the extraction of metals and plastics jumbled within its bulk including copper, gold, platinum, lead and glass. In processing the waste, the workers use neither high-tech equipment nor protective clothing. The methods by which precious metals are extracted from the e-waste are very harmful to the workforce due to the fumes emitted during their burning and melting. Exporting Harm stated that “Circuit boards are first heated by blowtorch and then the valuable chips are removed for further sale or precious metal extraction. Flame is directly applied to the board to remove the remaining solder, which is sold at the rate of 120 rupees per kg. The material removed from the boards that is suspected of containing gold is taken to another operation known as “Adda” (in local language). It is a very primitive smelting operation where workers sit before a small fire-pit fueled by wood and coal and where air is forced by fans and pipes into the fire to increase the heat. Here the material is melted to form a ball, which in the local language is called a “sikka.”
“After this melt, the ball of metal is then placed into acid baths. The effect of the acid segregates the metals from one another. A chemical powder is then applied to further segregate the copper and gold. Platinum can also be removed but this is not done frequently. Then the “goldsmiths” reduce the gold further by melting it into a small bead.”
Investigators found that the workers and the general public in Pakistan are completely unaware of the hazards of the e-waste materials that are being processed and the toxins they contain. There is no proper regulatory authority to oversee or control the pollution nor the occupational exposures to the toxins in the waste. Poverty compels people to work in such terrible conditions. There are similar awful situations going on in India and China in regards to e-waste processing. China is working to toughen its laws on the acceptance of e-waste and its processing. Consequently, it is thought that more e-waste will be shipped to India and Pakistan where legislation is lax.
At the GITEX exhibition in Dubai, I have been speaking with some IT hardware vendors about the issue of responsible end-of-life disposal of the equipment they are selling in the Saudi market. I would like to point out that these vendors have disposal programs in some European countries and in the United States. However, in the Middle East no vendor has a re-use or recycling program. One vendor’s representative told me with a straight face that he believes that there is no demand for such programs. Another vendor asked if people would be willing to pay to have their old computers recycled.
It is clear that once again international IT vendors are providing a lower level of service in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East than they make available elsewhere. These vendors are anxious to push products at us that have sold well in the US and Europe but they are not eager to provide the Middle East with the same disposal options for old computer equipment that they have already put in place in Europe and the United States. I asked one IT vendor’s representative if it would be necessary to legislate such requirements. He stated that he did not think so. He said that he was sure that soon his company and other vendors would be instituting end-of-life equipment disposal programs in the Middle East. I don’t believe him.
I urge all governments in the Middle East to step forward and enact legislation to compel IT vendors to take responsibility for end-of-life issues in regards to their products. It is a crime that both Middle Eastern nations and our Muslim brothers and sisters in neighboring developing countries are being abused to further the interests of multinational companies and First World nations. Major international hardware vendors have never had any difficulty taking their profits out of the region. It’s time that trash bearing their brands went too.
The report, “Exporting Harm, The High Tech Trashing of Asia,” is available for download at svtc.org either in text only or text plus photo versions.
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