Research: amount of electronic waste is growing strongly in Asian countries

In a recent study, the United Nations University states that a large increase in the amount of electronic waste can be observed in several countries in East and Southeast Asia. This would be the result of, among other things, increasing prosperity and a growing demand for electronics.

The UN research division, headquartered in Tokyo, reports that the amount of electronic waste, or e-waste, has increased by 63 percent in a five-year period. That amounts to a total of 12.3 million tons of waste. The study focused on twelve countries, including China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

In China, growth doubled between 2010 and 2015 at a rate of 107 percent. According to the research, the average waste production per inhabitant is about 10 kilograms in 2015. Hong Kong scores highest in this area with a production of 21.7 kilograms per inhabitant. Other high scoring countries are Singapore and Taiwan. At the other end of the scale are countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

The research describes Asia as the largest producer of electronic waste with a total production of 16 million tons in 2014. However, if one looks at the production per inhabitant, then Asia scores low compared to Europe and America. These continents produce almost four times as much electronic waste per inhabitant as Asia: an average of 15.6 kilograms per year.

In addition to increasing prosperity and growing demand, the decrease in the use time of electronics plays a role, according to the research. Factors such as compatibility of hardware and software are important here, as are ‘product fashion’. The growing amount of waste would be problematic for countries without environmentally friendly recycling and treatment options. In that respect, countries such as Japan and Taiwan score well; they started introducing special legislation more than twenty years ago.