Global e-waste is increasing dramatically, with over 70% being discarded in China.
Discussions were held during the EU-China RoHS Conference in Beijing, organised by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, at which experts said that most e-waste contains such harmful substance as lead, mercury, tin and cadmium and they can impose serious threats to the environment if they are disposed of properly.
RoHS stands for "the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment". This European Directive bans the placing on the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl and polybrominated diphenyl ether flame retardants.
There is currently not any formal legislation in China to regulate and manage the recycling of these wastes. Under this situation, some enterprises and representatives from the environmental protection departments are calling on the government to take various measures from the perspective of protecting the environment and improving the utility efficiency of recyclable resources to regulating the current unorderly e-waste recycling market.
With fast economic development, it is estimated that China's e-waste will grow at 5%-10% annually.
