Over the weekend I plugged the 60 Minutes segment on e-scrap processing in Guiyu with a promise to comment on it. So, without further ado, and despite a surfeit of scrap-related blogging over the last two weeks, here goes. In 2002, the Basel Action Network, a US-based activist group concerned with the export of high-tech…
All posts in Environment
The Shanghai Fog is Smog is Fog?
I cannot be the only person in this city of 20 million to have noticed that the air quality has gone from bad to abysmal over the last week. To be sure, the weather has been damp to humid, and that – as well as the pollution – might account for the haze/fog that has…
Out of the blue, into the black: A few thoughts on China’s new “e-waste” law
I started reporting on the Chinese scrap industry six years ago, and I think that I wrote my first story claiming that China’s long-awaited laws on the recycling of e-scrap (computers, monitors, etc) were imminent, shortly after SARS, in July 2003. Since then – off the top of my head – I’m fairly certain that…
Olympic Air Quality? Don’t Forget Hong Kong.
Before I get to the meat of this post, let me state one thing clearly: I don’t relish the idea of an Olympics held in a Beijing choked by smog/fog. Like any other sports fan (and I’m a big one), I’d like to see the Olympics take place under skies so blue that the excess…
A Gift for BOCOG: An Even Greener Olympics
I’ve derived no small amount of pleasure – and blog posts – from the news releases on the official Beijing Olympic website. So, in thanks for more than a year’s worth of material, I am going to humbly offer (and email!) this tip that I hope will enhance Beijing’s reputation as the host of the…
State-owned traffic congesters … revealed in time for the Olympics!
It’s no secret that Chinese government purchases have long propped-up the fortunes of Audi and other luxury car brands that market to affluent Chinese (for info on this endlessly enjoyable topic, see here and here). But what’s less well known is the raw number of government-owned vehicles currently clogging Chinese roads. That is to say:…
Quality School Construction is an Environmental Issue, too.
Now that it’s a fairly well established fact that most if not all of Sichuan’s collapsed schools failed to meet national or provincial construction standards, here’s another hypothesis worth testing: None of the defective materials used in Sichuan’s collapsed schools were produced in factories that met China’s national environmental standards for air, water, and other…
The Chinese E-Scrap Evolution
Currently, China throws away roughly 120 million waste appliances per year, including computers, televisions/monitors, washing machines, refrigerators, and air-conditioners. Yet, for the better part of two decades, most environmental activists concerned with China have taken a far greater interest in how foreigners dispose of their wastes in China (for example, attention devoted to the e-scrap…
Big Dumb Recycling Machine.
[12 September 2008 – Suddenly, this post is generating several hits per day from Venezuela. Could someone explain why?] A couple of weeks ago Shanghai Daily reported that China’s first automatic “drinking bottle recycling machine” had been installed on Nanjing Road for RMB 30,000 (US$4290). The idea is simple: after finishing your canned or bottled…
Scrappy Earth Day
There’s so much good cheer in China these last few days, I managed to totally overlook the fact that today – April 22 – is Earth Day. So, in the spirit of trying to find something positive to say in an increasingly poisonous environment (let me count the ways), I will – as Earth Day…