China's E-Waste Capital

"Guiyu is a modern day gold rush town. But instead of panning for gold in babbling streams, workers shift through piles of broken old computer parts in acrid smelling shacks, smelting down parts with crude equipment to extract valuable metals like gold and copper.

Every year, millions of unwanted computers, keyboards, television sets and cell phones are smuggled into China by sea. Much ends up in Guiyu, a rough town on the southern Chinese coast, not far from the former British colony of Hong Kong.

There is little regard for safety — no masks, little ventilation and few signs of government officials enforcing what safety rules do exist in China.

The lucky few wear rough but thin gloves. They are too scared of losing their jobs, or being beaten up, to dare to talk to visiting foreign reporters.

According to a 2005 U.N. report, up to 50 million metric tons of e-waste is generated annually, as people upgrade laptops and PCs and throw out old models.

The China Quality News estimates that about 72 percent of that e-waste ended up in China."