CONSTRUCTION of the city's first professional treatment plant for electronic garbage will soon begin in Qingpu District, according to the Shanghai Youth Daily.
Experts said the plant will relieve the pollution currently produced by the disposal of old electronic appliances. The foreign invested project is also the country's first large-scale professional plant of its kind.
The treatment works, covering 15,000 square metres, will mainly handle television sets, computers and mobile phones. After treatment, metal, glass and plastics will be recycled.
The plant is expected to begin operating next year, according to Chen Zhexing, the company's general manager.
The plant has the ability to deal with 500,000 television sets and computers a year. The figure equals the number of used television sets and computers produced in the city every year.
Previously, most residents sold their old electronic appliances to private collectors who would re-sell some of them in the countryside and throw the others away without further processing. This resulted in the lead, mercury and cadmium contained in the appliances polluting the soil and groundwater.
However, Chen's main concern now is how to collect the waste electronic appliances. At the moment, collectors pay from 50 to 100 yuan (US$6 to US$12) per set and Chen plans, as a first step, to co-operate with enterprises to kick-start the new treatment plant.
Chen said he expected the plant to begin making a profit within three years.
But a survey has shown that local residents do not care about the treatment of waste electronic appliances, according to the Shanghai Morning Post.
About 60 per cent of local residents said they were unwilling to pay for the treatment of the waste electronic appliances, according to a survey carried out by Environmental Science Department of East China Normal University.
The total number of electronic appliances in Shanghai is the second largest in the country. Next year, Shanghai will have more than 100,000 tons of waste electronic appliances to dispose of. There will be about 250,000 television sets, 200,000 refrigerators and 200,000 washing machines.
Experts said consumers will have to shoulder some of the responsibility for their disposal.
(Star News)
