Defusing Southeast Asia’s e-waste timebomb
Southeast Asia is drowning in electronic waste. As awareness of the toxic fall-out of the region’s e-waste crisis grows, what's being done to defuse an environmental timebomb in the making?
In a busy road-side shop in Cambodia’s capital city Phnom Penh, 19-year-old Pich plies a dangerous but lucrative trade.
Amid mountains of computers, televisions, DVD players, mobile phones, and cables, Pich runs a mini-garage of about 1,000 square foot that processes about three tonnes of electronic waste a day. Reusable or recyclable materials are sold off, and the remainder is either burned in the shop or dumped as trash in the vicinity.
A tumble of electric wires in Pich's road-side shop in Phnom Penh. Image: © Eco-Business
A tumble of electric wires in Pich's road-side shop in Phnom Penh. Image: © Eco-Business
Business is booming, says Pich, who declined to reveal his full name. He sources about a quarter of his e-waste from overseas, and the rest from local scavengers like 58-year-old Dara, who earn little more than 25 US cents per kilogram of e-waste.
The numbers back Pich’s booming trade: E-waste generation rates in Cambodia, as well as the rest of Southeast Asia are skyrocketing, with a United Nations University study showing that East and Southeast Asia generated 12.3 million tonnes more e-waste trash in 2015 than it did in 2010, a 63 per cent increase.
But while this e-waste boom means more business for Pich and the thousands of men and women employed—formally and informally—in Southeast Asia’s e-waste processing sector, it is also a growing environmental and economic scourge that the region cannot afford to ignore.
58 year-old waste picker Dara, plying his trade on the streets of Phnom Penh. Trade in e-waste goes for about 25 cents a kilogram. Image: © Eco-Business
58 year-old waste picker Dara, plying his trade on the streets of Phnom Penh. Trade in e-waste goes for about 25 cents a kilogram. Image: © Eco-Business
E-waste is one of the most urgent and pressing challenges of our time, but it is routinely under-looked. Around the world, the growing amount of e-waste threatens both the environment and local communities, as improperly disposed e-waste results in life-endangering toxic chemicals released into the environment and the demand for precious metals fuels bloody conflicts.
It is a problem that no single actor or solution can address, given the complexities of factors, including local waste management policies and corporate decisions around design, manufacturing and supply chain management, and consumer demand and behaviour.
The cost of inaction [on e-waste] will far exceed the cost of dealing with the problem over the short term.
But what is clear is that more needs to be done than is being done now.
As rates of electronics consumption spike in line with rising incomes of growing middle classes, Southeast Asia—already straining under the dual pressures of rising domestic e-waste generation and growing waste imports from the West—has to move swiftly to defuse this ticking environmental time-bomb.
Speaking to Eco-Business, John Gertsakis, director and co-founder of Ewaste Watch Institute, a non-profit from University of Technology Sydney, declares: “The cost of inaction [on e-waste] will far exceed the cost of dealing with the problem over the short term.”
Toxic fumes from burning e-waste, such as those produced by a huge fire at Dangkor landfill outside Phnom Penh last year, illustrate his point, and could be the shape of things to come as volumes of e-waste pile up. "It's a design flaw that electronics contain hazardous substances—they should be eliminated from the technology we use every day," says Gertsakis.
Other experts such as Madhumitha Ardhanari, a strategist at sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, warns that the issue is more severe than the public is led to think, since so much e-waste processing is done illegally in informal settings, and often goes unreported.
"While it is harder to appreciate, e-waste is also a socio-economic issue, given how people lose their income spent on healthcare and time lost from work to recover from respiratory and other illnesses from breathing in toxic fumes," she says.
Crisis by the numbers
While little data exists about the actual e-waste generated by Southeast Asian countries (only 41 of almost 200 countries globally have e-waste statistics), a look at broader Asian trends as well as specific country-level data paints a scary picture.
According to research by the United Nations University, Asia generates most of the world’s e-waste, producing 18.2 million metric tonnes (Mt) in 2016, 40.7 per cent of the global total. Europe followed at 12.3 Mt. Only 15 per cent of Asia’s e-waste is collected and recycled, compared to 35 per cent in Europe. But per person, Asia produces just 3.7 kg of e-waste compared to Europe’s 15.6 kg. What is more, Western countries are the source of a large chunk of Asia’s growing e-waste burden, earning this region the ignominious label of the world’s dumping ground for junked electronics.
While there are no standard methods to track global flows of e-waste, a 2016 attempt by journalists and activists to put GPS trackers on obsolete electronics in Europe and the United States showed that 93 per cent of e-waste landed up in Asia’s developing countries, many of which are in Southeast Asia.
At a regional level, affluent Singapore is Southeast Asia’s biggest e-waste generator, discarding more fridges, TVs, laptops and smartphones per person than the next two biggest e-waste producers—Malaysia and Thailand—combined, and 19 times more e-waste per person than Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia.
(In the 10 seconds it has taken to read a few paragraphs of this report, people and companies in Singapore will have thrown away 19 kg of e-waste, equivalent to binning 147 iPhones.)
As Ramkripal Pandey, the 61 year-old operations director of Tes-Amm, a recycling facility in Singapore that processes 3,000 tonnes of e-waste a year, puts it: “Electronics have become as disposable as plastic bags.”
“People used to use a mobile phone for five years. Now the younger generation wants to upgrade every six months,” adds Pandey.
Just 6 per cent of Singapore’s e-waste is recycled, mainly through corporate collection schemes, while the rest is burned in incinerators.
While Singapore’s e-waste burden has grown by a staggering 30 per cent per year over the last 15 years, the problem is worsening quicker elsewhere in Southeast Asia, with the fastest growth in Vietnam, as its swelling middle class fuels demand.
Electronics have become as disposable as plastic bags. People used to use a mobile phone for five years. Now the younger generation wants to upgrade every six months.
This is a direct result of the rapid growth of consumer electronics consumption in the region: At 29 per cent a year, Asia outstrips the global rate of 10 per cent, driven by the reduced lifespan of electronics and the increased frequency in which consumers replace electronics.
Compounding the domestic e-waste generation problem is the issue of incoming e-waste from foreign nations. China used to accept 70 per cent of the world’s e-waste, but a decision at the beginning of 2018 to block imports of many forms of waste—including electronics—has upended long-entrenched practices.
Until recently, e-waste's typical journey went something like this: shipped to China, dismantled then recycled, sent to factories in Shenzhen, and re-purposed for sale in Huaqiangbei, the world's largest electronics market.
Now, seeking the path of least legal resistance, the developed world has chosen Southeast Asia, where only 17 per cent of the population live in areas with any sort of e-waste legislation, as its new dumping ground.
Thailand and Malaysia have become two of the biggest recipients of the world’s e-waste after China shut its doors, with e-waste from the US increasing by 132 per cent over the last year in Malaysia, and quadrupling in Thailand. In just four months last year, the United Kingdom’s e-waste exports to Thailand rose fiftyfold.
While recycling centres and informal workshops have mushroomed all over Southeast Asian countries to cope with rising demand for e-waste processing, this is far from adequate; the region cannot afford to continue to ignore the harm that e-waste inflicts on people and the environment.
Costs, consequences and conflict
A litany of all the environmental and health problems posed by electronic waste goes something like this: carcinogenic emissions from burning heavy metal-laden, plastic-encased electronics; neurological damage; muscle degeneration in people and animals if lead—which is found in all e-waste—leaks into the air, soil, or water; impeded infant development as well as organ and nervous system damage from the toxic mercury found in fluorescent tubes and flat screens.
Those most at risk from the harmful health effects of e-waste are the people who handle it. Cambodian e-waste processor Pich, for example, wanders around his workshop in flipflops and virtually no other protective gear.
Others in the informal e-waste recycling economy also collect, sort, and recycle electronics with little regard for safety or the environment. Some common practices include burning electronics in the open in the land around them, or dunking e-waste in backyard acid baths to extract metals such as gold, silver, and titanium.
Sumangali Krishnan, head of research and strategy at GA Circular, a Singapore-based consultancy focused on finding business opportunities in post-consumer waste in Asia, says that mandating operating standards and building infrastructure to process electronics safely is a crucial first step to improve recycling processes in Southeast Asia, as so much of the recycling is done in informal settings.
She points out, however, that it is critical to work within existing value chains rather than setting up new systems. “E-waste recycling is a means of livelihood for many, and disrupting the value chain will only serve to marginalise these people,” she says.
“We need to recognise that the recycling industry will not be self-sustaining unless there is a lucrative end market for the recycled material.”
Typically, high-value materials from e-waste are exported from Southeast Asia to manufacturing hubs in Asia such as Japan and Taiwan, but with better operating standards in the regional bloc, this market could expand into a far more lucrative and sustainable market, she says.
Society’s wasteful use of electronics is also fuelling major concerns around resource scarcity, and threatening the industry’s long-term prospects.
As Sharul Annuar, marketing manager for e-waste recycling firm Virogreen, notes, Indium, a core component of indium tin oxide—the thin, transparent material that makes phone screens respond to touch—is currently in danger of depleting in 10 years. China, Japan and Korea are the biggest producers of this dwindling resource, of which less than 1 per cent is recycled globally.
E-waste recycling is a means of livelihood for many, and disrupting the value chain will only serve to marginalise these people.
Technology has evolved to a point where precious metals such as gold and silver feature less prominently in a gadget than they did decades ago, Annuar says. “But we are now mining for something that’s depleting as well,” he adds.
Worries over resource scarcity have led to major clampdowns on supply from resource-producing nations.
For instance, China, which produces over 90 per cent of the world’s rare earth metals, and is a major source of Indium, in 2010 moved to restrict exports. This caused rare earth metal prices to increase five-fold in a year, which in turn drove up the prices of electronic gadgets and sent companies around the world scrambling for alternative sources. Amid the current trade war between China and the US, China has hinted that it might put a squeeze on exports of rare earth metals to the US, a move that observers fear could bring Silicon Valley to its knees.
Sometimes, there are alternative materials and solutions. But, scientists have advised that at other times, there is just no other way. For instance, out of the 62 metals that make up an iPhone, 12 of them have no substitutes.
This increased resource scarcity will not only affect business and consumer lifestyles, it could also lay the path for global conflict in the future, say experts.
China's move to control the South China Sea, for instance, have been linked to a desire to mine minerals in the sea bed that are used to make electronics; while reserves of cobalt, used to make batteries, are concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country already ravaged by conflict over mined resources.
Ultimately, a sustainable supply of resources is a question of self-preservation and self-interest for industry. E-waste legislation and proper management of this waste stream can also create major economic opportunities, as precious metals such as gold and silver found in devices left forgotten in junk drawers make smartphones hidden goldmines.
The reality is, Southeast Asia is faced with an unenviable challenge: Can it navigate its way out of a looming e-waste crisis, protecting its people and environment while also reaping the profits of becoming a global e-waste recycling hub?
At the moment, the policy approach of almost every Southeast Asian country to e-waste achieves none of the above.
While in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, there are advanced legal frameworks for managing e-waste, combined with strong enforcement of health and safety standards for electronics collection and recycling systems, Southeast Asia is a veritable playground for electronics firms, which operate virtually free from the environmental and social consequences of the products they sell.
However, with the right policy interventions, high levels of reuse, repair and recycling could transform Southeast Asia from an electronics dumping ground into an innovation centre, suggests Ewaste Watch Institute's John Gertsakis, who helped to develop a national electronics takeback scheme in Australia.
"You need systems around products," says Gertsakis. "Product durability and recyclability are all well and good. But if there’s not a system in place, you don’t secure the environmental and social benefits of those innovations," he says.
A strong policy response supported by funding in recycling infrastructure and technology and awareness building are critical next steps in addressing the e-waste sector, adds Krishan of GA Circular.
The alternative is worrying. E-waste is already the world’s fastest growing waste stream. As internet-of-things technology enters people’s homes in the developed world, a “new wave” of e-waste is set to proliferate, warns Gertsakis—and, unless things change, Southeast Asia will be the likely recipient of this waste and the impact that comes with it.
Treasure from trash
Like all countries around the world, most Southeast Asian nations are acutely aware of the high price of e-waste, and the benefits to be gained from keeping electronics and their components in circulation for as long as possible.
Globally, best practice policy responses to e-waste include Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, a policy approach in which product manufacturers have financial or physical responsibility for recycling products at the end of their life cycles.
These are implemented through takeback programmes where companies collect used electronics deposited by their customers, then recycle them.
While some Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have comprehensive e-waste legislation that covers all aspects of the issue, experts note that in Asean countries (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), e-waste laws are still a work in progress.
Florencio Ballesteros Jr., a national expert on e-waste for United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), tells Eco-Business: “More advanced countries have the technology to process e-waste because their laws require them to create these technologies.”
“Most Asean countries lack the e-waste laws of their more developed neighbours, and are still trying to ‘close the loop’,” says Ballesteros, who is based in the Philippines.
For instance, the Philippines treats e-waste as “hazardous” and requires it to be handled separately, but because there are no guidelines on how to do so, nor a formal collection system, e-waste is simply processed as municipal solid waste or picked at by the informal sector.
Philippines lawmakers have proposed a bill that pushes for manufacturers to recycle e-waste for free—similar to what corporations like Dell, Starhub and HP are providing in Singapore for consumers—but the bill has yet to be made law.
Meanwhile, Indonesia, Thailand, and Myanmar have no established legal frameworks for e-waste yet, as the informal sector handles almost all of the collection, recycling and disposal of e-waste.
Waste is being shipped around the world with no home to go to.
Despite lacklustre progress on e-waste legislation, one piece of legislation that all Asean countries have signed is the Basel Convention, an international treaty designed to reduce the movement of hazardous waste between nations, and prevent the transfer of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries.
But while this looks good on paper, the convention is often violated as rich countries exploit loopholes in the agreement, adding to Southeast Asia's growing mountains of e-waste.
The weakness in the agreement stems from a clause which states that a country can export e-waste if the material can be reused. But in reality, most exported items are near or already at the end of their lives, and can only be used for a short period before entering the waste stream.
Further stretching the capability of international and domestic policy to deal with e-waste in Southeast Asia is the fact that China’s recent move to block e-waste imports has badly disrupted long-entrenched patterns of e-waste transfer.
As Dr Martin Blake, strategic advisor of integrated waste management firm Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, puts it: “Waste is being shipped around the world with no home to go to.”
He adds: “This waste is finding its way onto the black market, and it is being processed by people who are inappropriately skilled or protected, and treated in a way that extracts the most profit, without regard for the environment or people.” This makes it difficult for the professional recycling economy to gain momentum and achieve scale, he says.
UNIDO’s Ballesteros notes that the outsized role of the informal sector in the waste collection process in these countries is holding back progress on e-waste recycling in Asean countries.
“When e-waste is collected by the informal sector, it is dismantled and segregated, while recoverable metals like microchips, printed circuit boards and display screens from computers are disposed of indiscriminately,” Ballesteros tells Eco-Business.
The problem is compounded by the limited resources of the recycling sector and low public awareness of the hazards of improper e-waste disposal, he says.
Experts have noted that integrating the informal e-waste sector with more formal collection and recycling processes is key to improving e-waste collection, as it helps to legitimise and protect waste pickers while helping companies fulfill their obligations to take back and recycle their products.
For instance, in India—the world’s fourth biggest e-waste producer, where 95 per cent of consumer electronics are recycled informally—non-government organisations (NGOs) act as a bridge between waste pickers and electronics manufacturers under pressure to collect and recycle what they sell.
The system works like this: NGOs serve as a collection agency, aggregating the bounty of e-waste pickers. The agency connects the e-waste pickers with buyers that demand a supply compliant with health and safety standards. However, a challenge with this system is making the collection agency profitable, since informal recyclers can offer more competitive buying prices than compliant buyers.
Silver lining
There is a silver lining to China's waste ban: Prompted by the tide of e-waste that has come flooding into Southeast Asia, the region’s policymakers are finally taking this issue seriously and accelerating efforts to better manage e-waste, Ballesteros says.
It has helped that waste has become a political issue that has made international headlines. In May, the Philippines returned to Canada more than 100 container vans of municipal waste that had been illegally shipped to the country six years ago, while Malaysia has promised to send plastic rubbish shipped to its shores back to the countries of origin.
The question is, what will it take for e-waste to get the same attention as plastic? More stories like the container holding tonnes of electronic waste shipped illegally from Hong Kong to the Philippines in June could be what is need to move the policy needle.
More policymaking is needed, given the limitations of municipal systems to process and safely dispose of e-waste, says Krishnan of GA Circular.
A good place to start would be a system that builds connections between the informal sector and responsible recyclers, to protect e-waste pickers from health hazards and develop a more sustainable market for recycling electronics.
“Not recycling e-waste is a missed opportunity, given the diminishing supply of precious metals and dangers presented in mining for them,” she says. “Given the rising consumption of electronics and electrical goods, a well-regulated recycling industry for e-waste is critical for the region.”
Do companies care?
Even as policy responses to e-waste continue to lumber at the same pace as most bureaucratic undertakings, some private sector players are racing ahead to figure out ways to transform the wasteful electronics industry into a circular economy.
A circular economy is one where products and their resources are reused and kept in circulation for as long as possible, rather than following traditional “take, make, waste” patterns.
With smartphone sales stagnating—because almost everyone already has one—and the industry on the lookout for new ideas, the circular economy could provide a US$1 trillion boost to the electronics market by 2025, according to United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.
However, as Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, chair of Circular Economy Taskforce at the National University of Singapore, puts it: “It is abundantly clear that all consumer electronics are now designed and made with profit and the rapid pace of competition in mind.”
That approach is evident in a survey Eco-Business sent out to the industry in November 2018. 12 smartphone manufacturers were asked how they manage electronic waste within their operations.
The questions posed to manufacturers ranged from the amount of recycled material they use in their products and whether they run an e-waste takeback programme to the lifespan of their products and how much of the materials that go into their products are recovered and collected.
Barely any of the companies—which included Apple, Samsung, LG, Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei—responded to the survey and instead referred Eco-Business to their websites for more information on their recycling programs. Only HMD Global, the parent company of Nokia, and Fairphone responded.
Despite the lack of transparency apparent from companies regarding e-waste, a growing “circular economy consciousness”, driven by growing consumer demand for more sustainable products and EPR laws that force companies to take responsibility for their products after use, will force product designers to change tack, says Ramakrishna.
But how? In their Circular Design Guide, design firm IDEO and non-profit Ellen MacArthur Foundation says that there are four key principles companies can adopt to pursue circular business opportunities—to reuse, refurbish, remanufacture, and recycle.
Designing for the future
As circular economy practices gain traction, future gadgets should become more modular, durable, energy efficient, and be made from more environmentally benign materials, says Ramakrishna.
One example of sustainable innovation in electronics is the Fairphone, a smartphone invented in the Netherlands designed specifically to have minimal environmental impact. Their phones are built to last; modular, so it can easily be repaired; and free from conflict minerals gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten.
Though Fairphone sales are unlikely to frighten the likes of Apple and Samsung (a rough estimate is 150,000 units sold since launch in 2013), the product provides a model for how consumer electronics could be designed and built in the future.
The Fairphone, designed for the circular economy. Image: Fairphone
The Fairphone, designed for the circular economy. Image: Fairphone
Ramakrishna predicts that gadgets of the future will be sold with detailed accompanying information on how to recycle or upcycle components, and this information will be available on open, searchable databases to enable consumers to order new parts and recycle old ones.
Companies are also unveiling major innovations to reduce the overall environmental impact of their products, which will make them less toxic at the end of their life cycles, Ramakrishan notes, citing examples such as solar-powered smartphones; self-healing and biodegradable electronics; and insertable devices that cannot get lost (because they're under our skin) and rarely need replacing.
Veerappan Swaminathan, co-founder of sustainability solutions firm Sustainable Living Lab, adds that policy and corporate measures will not succeed without an accompanying change in consumer behaviour.
All consumer electronics are now designed and made with profit and the rapid pace of competition in mind.
Whether consumers think their devices are inadequate because they see new models enter the market every year, or are just tempted to replace their devices to “keep up with the Joneses”, current behaviour patterns are not sustainable.
“We are lacking consumer education on how to best use our electronic devices,” he says.
Manufacturers can help keep products in circulation for longer by not making system updates—that tend to slow down older phones—a necessary condition to continuing service, and to offer options to upgrade sub-components individually instead of replacing entire devices, says Swaminathan.
He also proposes companies to pursue a for-hire business model that would allow consumers to rent a phone for two to four years, incentivising the need for manufacturers to keep devices functioning effectively.
Planned obsolescence: Myth or reality?
In October 2018, a decision by European antitrust and consumer watchdogs to fine Apple and Samsung millions for deliberately cutting the lifespan of products so that consumer have to buy new ones seemed to confirm long-held suspicions that companies are engaging in “planned obsolescence”.
But is this practice an insidious industry practice or just consumer conspiracy?
Here are two perspectives.
Sharing is caring
But while pie-in-the-sky technology ideas may take time to catch on, an immediate disruptor of the way we consume electronics is the sharing economy, says Ramakrishna.
“To date, electronics firms have thrived on personalised gadgets marketed at the me-first generation, but cloud computing and the ability to create a secure personal digital identity will mean that even something as personal as a mobile phone can be shared,” he explains.
John Gertsakis of the Ewaste Watch Institute is planning to set up a website for lending and borrowing electronics in Australia. He suspects that certain types of electronics will lend themselves best to the sharing economy.
“In a street of 14 houses, you don’t need 14 hedge trimmers that only get used once a year,” he says, adding that the high-density living that is characteristic of many Southeast Asian cities is well suited to the sharing economy, as it saves on storage space.
Product rental websites are already starting to proliferate in some countries. There’s Grover in Germany, which has backing from Korean electronics giant Samsung, FatLama in the UK, and tool lending library My Turn in the US. All are geared up for borrowing equipment gathering dust in people’s draws and sheds.
We’ve reached a tipping point in how the world responds to the plastic crisis. That action will extend to e-waste as the consequences of the problem become clearer.
“[The sharing economy] will upend current business models and push companies to be more responsible,” says Ramakrishna. “It will be the new normal for future societies, and the next generation will learn to share rather than own the devices we now take for granted.”
But for now, Southeast Asia is faced with the more immediate task of defusing an environmental timebomb in the making. E-waste continues to flow into the region at an unmanageable rate, with the environmental and social consequences of this waste tsunami only just coming to light. But there is hope, reckons Gertsakis.
“We’ve reached a tipping point in how the world responds to the plastic crisis, and I think that action will extend to e-waste as the consequences of the problem become clearer,” he says.
Sumangali Krishnan of GA Circular, which recently forged a deal between nine consumer goods companies to take action to curb plastic pollution in Vietnam, says that, despite the complexity of e-waste, it could actually prove easier to manage than plastic because many electronics firms such as HP and Dell already operate mature programmes for retrieving and reusing post-consumer waste.
The question is whether these efforts can be scaled and joined up to achieve industry-wide impact, she says.
“What we’re seeing around the region [to tackle plastic pollution] will have a positive impact on how governments regulate e-waste and how businesses develop products,” Gertsakis says. There are lessons to learn from Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and Southeast Asian countries will be watching developments unfold in Singapore with interest—a EPR law for e-waste is to be introduced in the city-state by 2021.
Consumers are in the driving seat of change, he says. “Demand for ethically produced goods will push companies to act on e-waste. Companies dragging their feet at the cost of the environment do so at their commercial peril.”
What can you do about e-waste?
- Re-think. Do you really need that extra gadget? Find a device with multiple functions instead.
2. Give your electronics longer life. Use a protective case, clean your device, avoid overcharging the battery.
3. Reuse. Get your electronics repaired rather than buying new.
4. Recycle. If your gadgets really are dead, take them to e-waste recycling bins. If the manufacturer or retailer doesn't have recycling options, ask them why not. They should.
5. Rent. Do you really need to buy that power tool? Rent one instead. If you own one, rent it out.
6. Buy greener electronics. Most brands are designed to fail early. Always read the label. How easy is your gadget to repair?
7. Ask your electronics provider if they have a programme to collect their products at the end of the life cycle and responsibly recycle them.
Got a view on how to unplug the e-waste crisis?
Write to us at news@eco-business.com
