E-waste recycling taken to next level in Hong Kong
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - 09:29:12
This month a new recycling centre designed to process vast amounts of electronic waste opened its doors for the first time in Hong Kong, as the city sets out to try and lead the global march towards a greener future.
The Financial Times reports that around £46 billion worth of old electronics, including smartphones, computers and appliances, are discarded each year. And yet the vast majority of this total is dumped in a way that is environmentally problematic and undeniably wasteful.
The facility in Hong Kong cost almost £39 million to build, but the public money that has been poured into its construction will ideally be recouped as the valuable metals, plastics and other materials are reclaimed from used gadgets.
Spokesperson, Nigel Mattravers, described the world’s e-waste issue as being a growing concern. And while each resident of Hong Kong creates around 19kg of e-waste annually, this is still lower than the 25kg average that exists in the UK.
In fact, British consumers even out-pace their counterparts over in the US, where e-waste output is at around 19.4kg per person at the moment.
This suggests that consumers from the UK should do more to dispose of their second hand devices in a sustainable way; selling old phones rather than throwing them in the bin, taking unwanted TVs and computers to proper recycling centres rather than ditching them with the general waste.
Hong Kong is just one of the cities that is looking to take responsibility for its electronic off-casts. Rather than shipping e-waste overseas where it may not be processed in a way that is safe or environmentally sound, the opening of this new facility will make sure that it can handle everything domestically and oversee the recycling at first hand.
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