Residents in Shanghai, China are being encouraged to recycle their old mobile phones and other e-waste rather than sell their old items to roadside junk collectors.
Shanghai discards more than 200,000 tons of electronic waste, or e-waste, each year and this amount continues to rise.
Electronic waste recyclers are at war with the street collectors and an official in the city’s waste administration said: “It’s really a headache. Roadside collectors can reach every corner of the city.”.
Most residents are still choosing to either give or sell their old electrical and electronic equipment to junk collectors.
But why not sell your old phone to a junk dealer? Rather than recycling it, junk dealers sell them again on the second hand market or strip them down to sell some parts and just throw away the parts they don’t want. This leads to further pollution. One battery has enough contaminants, like lead, to destroy 1 square meter of crop-growing land.
The city’s government is trying to encourage residents to recycle their electronic waste instead. Incentives are being given such as discounts to those who return used electronic appliances when buying new ones.
These returned devices will then be sent for recycling rather than being discarded.