China's booming middle class drives Asia's toxic e-waste mountains

(The Guardian, 16 Jan 2017) Sharp rise in discarded electronic goods is generating millions of tonnes of hazardous waste, putting pressure on valuable resources, study shows.

Asia’s mountains of hazardous electronic trash, or e-waste, are growing rapidly, new research reveals, with China leading the way.

A record 16m tonnes of electronic trash, containing both toxic and valuable materials, were generated in a single year – up 63% in five years, new analysis looking at 12 countries in east and south-east Asia shows.

In China the mountain of discarded TVs, phones, computers, monitors, e-toys and small appliances grew by 6.7m tonnes in 2015 alone. That’s an 107% increase in just five years. To get a sense of scale, if every woman, man and child in China had an old LCD monitor and dumped it the pile would not equal the 2015 tonnage. [1]

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The Guardian, 16 Jan 2017: China's booming middle class drives Asia's toxic e-waste mountains