In my excitement to write this blog I have forgotten to explain what electronic waste is exactly and where does it come from. Electronic waste is any electrical equipment that is discarded. It is also known as either escrap or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). My focus is to study the end of life of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment. ICTs have been shaping the world where everyone wants to own the best computer, laptop, mobile etc. Everyday more and more advanced technologies make their way in to the market, making previous ones obsolete. Obsolence has played its role in running these ICT companies. Products are produced with a life span of less than two year leaving the consumer with only the option to buy more and discard the previous equipment. This has resulted in more and more electronic waste. It is one of the largest and fastest growing waste stream. 20-50 Million tons of electronic waste is produced every year out of which only 20% is recycled formally. The remaining 80% makes its way in to the developing countries where it is informally recycled. Pakistan is one of the largest receivers of electronic waste. Informal recycling involves manually dismantling, burning, and extraction of precious
metals with the help of strong and toxic chemicals and acids.
I am from a remote village called Amanpur in Attock, Pakistan. However I have lived most of my life in the capital, Islamabad. I had looked at videos and had read papers about how various developing countries have been made into dumping grounds for the developed nations electronic waste but I never realized Pakistan was one of them. My work was an eye opener for me. It seemed like a fictional story and a myth till I saw it for myself.
Where does ewaste come from? Why does it come to Pakistan? How does it enter Pakistan and most importantly how much is coming to Pakistan were the most important questions I needed to investigate.
In 2010 when I started my work every time I googled ewaste in Pakistan I came up with very few links. I realized then that this would be a very difficult task but at the same time very interesting. I remember every time I was in the field and came across a new piece of information it was a eureka moment for me.
My sources helped me discover that electronic waste was not only coming from USA and Europe but a lot of the ewaste was entering
Pakistan from UAE, Singapore and India. These can also be indirect routes for ewaste from USA and Europe. Various ewaste
sources show information about suppliers from China,Cameron, Italy, Western Europe, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Russia, Hongkong, Singapore, Malaysia, China, UAE, Oman, Egypt, Nigeria and various other nations. Million of tons of waste is brought into Pakistan from all
around the world.
How and why does it come into Pakistan??? Pakistan is signatory to various regulations such as
- Basel Convention on the Control of
Trans-Boundary Movement of Hazardous waste and their Disposal
- Rotterdam
Convention on Prior Informed Consent for Certain Hazardous Chemicals
- Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
- Vienna
Convention and Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS)
but still ewaste is coming into Pakistan. It comes in as second hand functioning products. Pakistan has a population of 180 million, majority of which are unable to afford new ICTs. Availability of second hand products help in providing this majority with a reasonable option and provides everyone with the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of IT ( I just realized this completely supports the MDG 8 target 18F this could be a justification for ewaste dumping).
Today
there are almost 19
million internet users in Pakistan,
which means 10.4 % of the population have access to internet. Similarly
108 million Pakistanis are subscribed to various mobile phone
companies. The number of fixed landline phones has reduced from 5.2
million in 2005-06 to 3.4 million in 2009-10. The
trend shows an increase in dependency on more and more ICTs in the
future and there is a need to have cheaper mobile phone/computers
available to meet the increasing demand.
Secondly it comes as charity once a person working with an NGO in Pakistan told me that you could easily ask for old computers for government schools, who being on a limited budget cannot provide their students with the luxury of providing new computers. This helps the companies in getting rid of their waste and also contribute towards development in Pakistan ( thats good as long as they are functional) .
One very interesting means through which ewaste comes into Pakistan is through transit trade. Following
the Convention on Transit Trade of Land-locked States, custom duty is
not applied on products that are imported by Afghanistan via transit
through Pakistan. Therefore a lot of ewaste makes its way via imports
to Afghanistan, and many business men import secondhand computers and
scrap with Afghanistan as destination. Once the scrap reaches the
Afghanistan border the dealers come into Pakistan and sell it before
it enters Afghanistan or it crosses the border and makes its way back
into Pakistan which is a more lucrative market for ewaste.
Whenever people talk to me about my work the first question is how much ewaste is Pakistan receiving ???? ( Always an embarrassing situation ) I really dont know there are so many ways it enter into the country that maybe even the customs of Pakistan would not know. One of the ewaste dealers I talked to told me he would go to Dubai, UAE and collect all possible ewaste he can over a time period. He would then fill up a boat and bring it to Pakistan. It saved him all the hassle to pay all the custom imposed taxes. Something that would cost $20 this way would cost him $80 if brought through the proper channel. "Why should I pay so much for scrap", he says. If he would bring it through proper channel he would leave his shipment with the customs (as they impose high duties on ICTS) for a year and buy it at cheap rates when they auction it at the end of the year. You would be amazed at the stories these people have. I was, always.
So with so many routes its not very easy to determine how much ewaste is coming to Pakistan. In a famous local newspaper Dawn there was a news item in 2007 where it said about 50,000 tons of ewaste enters into Pakistan each year( This is fairly an old statistics even if it was right ).
I thought the right way to go about it would be to ask the authorities. Who would know better than them. They sent me a list which did not mention ewaste: they had alot of obsolete objects, some second hand products and OTHERS (this could be ewaste cant say for sure). So no scrap is coming in Pakistan according to this list.
If this list was where I had started my work from I would have been home within a week. The good thing is the delay in the reply of the authorities made me go to the field in advance. Here I found dealers with their rooms full of these boxes of computers.
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Computer boxes piled up in Storage of shops |
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EUREKA |
This was a eureka moment for sure, though the dealer was not really happy when I took the picture. I asked him if this is the box its imported in, he replied yes. I asked him next if this is what you sold as new. This did not really make him happy. If there is no scrap according to the import list then what was this ??? hmmmm..... How does it go unnoticed with all the legislations.
Talking to one guy in the authorities he boasted when he said we once sent back two container of ewaste back to XXXX. I sat infront of him and wondered what about the rest of it, what about the boxes we see above, where was he when they were brought into Pakistan. Then again he might have not known with all the different routes (quite probably giving him the benefit of doubt).
I have always heard that someone's trash is someone else's treasure, never believed it until I saw how THIS was extracted from scrap.
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People this is what is running this business in Pakistan |