According to Greenpeace China, China has become one of the world's major dumping grounds for electronic waste:
As much as 4,000 tonnes of toxic e-waste is discarded in the world every hour, equivalent to the weight of 1,000 elephants, the global environmental group said in a statement on Monday.This story has been covered at length in publications like the New York Times, but this is the first time that I have heard reference to Greenpeace China, which in best activist style, on Monday "tried to shame electronics companies attending a show in Beijing by unveiling a 2.7-metre (8.9-foot) high statue shaped as a wave, built using the companies' electronic waste collected from e-waste recycling yards in Guiyu."
While there is no breakdown on how much of the global electronic waste ends up in China, Greenpeace said the country was a favorite dumping ground, with many of the world's electronic products being made there.
Although China has banned electronic waste from being imported, companies still export the waste there illegally while a lot more is generated domestically, said Greenpeace campaigner Yue Yihua.
As I've mentioned in these pages before, I think China's environmental movement is hopeful on many levels, not the least of which is its capacity to encourage and develop citizen activists who are raising awareness, helping to generate a real public discussion of the issues and perhaps even creating a genuine political force outside of the CCP's monopoly. If there are seeds for a more democratic China, I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of them were planted by China's environmentalists.
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