Phone makers committed to disposal plan
31/10/2003 15:10
Seven leading mobile phone manufacturers from home and abroad have
promised to recollect and dispose of out-of-use cell phones to help reduce
mounting environment pollution by their electronic products.
The phone
makers, including Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Haier, along with Weicheng
Environment Protection Technology Co. and China Forum of Environmental
Journalists, launched a cell phone environmental protection program yesterday in
Beijing, calling phone makers to take the responsibility for the disposal of
their handsets and phone fittings.
Favoring the joint move, Pan Yue, vice
director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said the
country's environment authority is considering a similar recall system and will
unveil a new regulation to extend the responsibility to electronic product
manufacturers for re-collection and disposal of their products after being out
of use.
Discarded electronic products have posed a serious threat to China's
environment due to the high containment of pollutants such as mercury, nickel
and lead, environment exports pointed out.
According to their estimation, an
average 7,000 tons of handsets are put out of use each year in the country and
the discarded electronic products top 1 million tons.
In addition to mobile
phones, the electronic products mainly include home appliances such as
refrigerators, washing machines, TV sets and computers.
China is not the
first country to consider putting the recycling responsibility onto electronic
product companies, the experts said.
The European Union, for example, has
enacted regulations this February to require electronic manufacturers of
products in 100 categories to re-collect, recycle and dispose of their products.
The companies are also banned from using polluting materials in their
products as of July 1 2006.
Jane Chen /Shanghai Daily news
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