Cleaner work model improves people’s lives

Chen Weiyang started an electronic waste recycling business in 2001, shortly after he graduated from a technical institute in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province.

Instead of looking for a job in the provincial capital, Chen returned to his hometown of Guiyu, in Shantou, an eastern coastal city about 450 kilometers from Guangzhou.

“At the time, almost all the local people, including my family members, were engaged in e-waste recycling. It was a pillar industry in the city,” he said.

For more than decade, the 38-year-old entrepreneur made a living running a small workshop that focused on recycling discarded mobile phones in Guiyu, which has a population of about 150,000.

“We did the recycling at home – usually working and living in a simple building. There were few environmental protection measures,” he recalled.

Large numbers of migrant workers first began arriving in Guiyu, where local workshops started recycling e-trash in the late 1980s, and helped to develop the sector as a driving force of the local economy.

“The streets downtown were always crowded with vehicles loading and delivering electronic trash,” Chen said.

Last year, he had to move his business to an industrial zone near his home after the local government decided to tackle the pollution that had resulted after decades of “illegal and disordered” recycling.

To deal with the pollution, the local government has invested more than 1 billion yuan ($150 million) since 2010 to develop a recycling industrial park that offers standardized disposal of effluent, waste and noxious emissions.

“Now we are doing the same business in the zone, although working conditions have improved a lot,” said Chen, whose company employs about 80 workers.

While he was talking, his two young sons were helping the workers handle semiconductor chips that had been removed from old phones.

However, business has declined markedly in recent years as a result of increased efforts by the local government to fight illegal recycling and improve the environment.

According to Zheng Jinxiong, deputy director of the Guiyu Recycling Economic and Industrial Zone, the town now handles no more than 400,000 metric tons of e-trash a year.

The Shantou environmental protection authority said that by last year, the heavy metal content in Guiyu’s air had fallen by 94 percent, compared with the levels in 2012. In addition, the amount of lead in the local river has fallen by 37 percent.

“Due to the fall in the prices of gold and other electronic components since last year, many small workshops have opted to close,” Zheng said.

“You can see a beautiful view when the sun rises and sets. In the past, the town was enveloped in dust and smoke from hundreds of e-waste workshops,” he said.