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Mln ton electronic wastes dumped a year
www.chinanews.cn 2005-09-23 11:17:59
(Source: Xinhuanet)
JINAN, Sept. 22 - The environment watchdog on Thursday voiced concerns
over its ability to clean up electronic pollution as the Chinese dumped
roughly 1.11 million tons of electronic wastes from trashed home
appliance.
"We are under increasing pressure to clean up electronic pollution," said
Zhong Bin, official with the State Environmental Protection
Administration. "The technology is fast upgrading and the market demand
is swelling."
Every year, China disposed off at least 5 million television sets, 4
million refrigerators, 5 million washing machines, 5 million computers,
and dozens of millions of cellphones, government statistics shows.
Health specialists say e-waste contains excessive poisonous elements such
as lead, mercury and cadmium that are extremely harmful to both human and
the environment.
Meanwhile, China has a large number of illegal e-waste collectors, who
often take away the precious metal to exchange formoney, and the less
valuable parts they throw away can cause serious pollution to soil, air
and ground water, Zhong said.
"Electronic wastes pose severe harm to the environment and human health,"
said Zhou, who was attending a workshop on electronic waste treatment at
the eastern city of Qingdao in Shandong province.
China is expected to enforce regulations governing the treatment of waste
electrical and electronic equipment this year. The regulations will make
producers to be responsible for the collection, recycling and reuse the
product wastes.
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