Electronic Waste Case Study

Electronic waste in Guiyu, China
Introduction of the town:
Guiyu is a town located in the Guangdong Province of southeast China. . The population consists of 200,000 local residents and 200,000 migrant workers living in the town. The town’s economy purely relied on agriculture before the late 80s. But after that, Guiyu has highly involved in e-waste recycling business. Not only myriads of farmers have abandoned agriculture and joined the recycling, but also migrant workers in other provinces have been attracted to participate in. Nowadays, Guiyu is one of the major manufacturing zones and hubs of disposing electronic waste in China even the globe. There are many family workshops which collect electronic wastes such as scrapped mobile phones,
It has created myriads of job opportunities for local residents and migrant workers. According to a report of local government in 2013, there were 3,207 family workshops working for 300 e-waste disposal enterprises in 21 villages. Workers can earn around $8 USD per day that is nearly five times more than agriculture. There is a position named “gold washing”. It is the most profitable position as workers may have a chance to find gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals in some e-wastes. Also, even plastic can be sold as a material to manufacturing factories. People have decided to put poisonous working environment prior to poverty. Parents rather risk their lives to earn money for their children so that they can receive education from colleagues and universities. It would be the only way for them to leave the town and have better living standard in the future. That’s why there are sufficient labors sustaining the industry in
The GDP per capita of China is $11524.57 USD in 2014. Disposable income has grown more than 10% every year. CPI growth has decreased to a lower level than 2011. The purchasing power of Chinese people has increased. Young adults are more willing to spend on electronic devices. Plus, the technological development is very fast now. People constantly purchase latest models and abandon the older one such as mobile phone. It creates huge amount of e-waste.
As for social and political aspect, workers lack protection from the local government and enterprises. There are no social insurances and subsidies for local workers. They have to expose to toxic working environment without suitable equipment and protective gears. Most of them are suffering from different kinds of skin disease as they dismantle and manage e-wastes, such as toxic metals and printer toners, with bare hands. Also, 88% of the workers are suffering from respiratory, neurological and digestive problems. They have to keep working even getting