Resource Management and Geography - Theses
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ItemBetween formality and informality: recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment in China( 2012)Informal recycling is a prevalent low-cost recycling practice in managing waste electrical and electronic equipment (e-waste) in many developing countries. Nowadays the majority of e-waste in China is recycled by the informal sector, leading to a series of environmental and health consequences. This thesis explores informal e-waste management in China, focusing on the causes, applications and mechanism of informal recycling activities, and the linkages between the formal and informal sectors in the e-waste recycling system. The study offers new understanding of the informal sector, giving unique insights to its multiple roles and substantial influences on the current recycling patterns, and providing information for integrating the informal sector into the design of China’s e-waste management system. Through a case study in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province of China, this thesis investigates the participation of the informal sector and its interactions with the formal sector in the local recycling system. Considering the diversity of e-waste recycling activities and the ambiguous definition of “informal recycler” in China, this study goes beyond the current conceptual framework of informal sector and adopts own criteria to examine the informal attributes of certain recyclers in four major aspects: scope of business, employment of labour, recycling method, and production management. Besides, by looking into the collection and physical separation stages, the thesis discusses the codependency between the formal and informal sectors from perspectives of material interflow, organisational linkage, and division of labour. Based on a household survey, the study first analyses the formal and informal disposal channels of urban household e-wastes. It gives data about the household ownership of eighteen types of e-waste, presents the distribution of various disposal alternatives, analyses the dynamics driving different e-waste outflows, and highlights the advantage of informal collection. The site visits of recycling firms in the Fengjiang Secondary Metal Processing and Utilisation Base (an industrial park located in Luqiao District of Taizhou) have identified many innovative applications of informal recycling behaviors in formal establishments, proving the disparity between the regulatory and practical definitions of formal and informal e-waste recyclers in the market. According to information from interviews and participant observation, this thesis gives in-depth description of some key informal actors and explains how their diversified connections realise the completion of recycling steps. It identifies several casual recycling job categories, and emphasises the skill and transferability of those informally employed waste workers. Noticeably, there is obvious hometown-based distribution of labour in the recycling sector, and fellow villager (Laoxiang) relationship plays critical roles in bringing in and training of migrant waste workers in Taizhou. Through studying the actual manual separation process, the thesis also points out the efficiency of manual sorting and disassembly in handling the complex and heterogeneous e-wastes. The strength of such hand-based recycling is derived from the skills of workers, the special way of production organisation and the flexible arrangement among involved actors (such as foremen, overseers, and waste owners). This ensures the easy adjustability and high market adaptability of manual recycling approach, which responses well to the varying and mixed e-waste inputs and the changing downstream demands on outputs. The Taizhou case shows that in the real recycling chain the formal and informal sectors are highly related to each other. First of all, there are intensive flows of recyclates between the two sectors. Secondly, at organisational level, many recycling units are neither formal nor informal, but somewhere in between. Several features are commonly exhibited by both formal and informal recyclers, implying the continuity between the two categories. Thirdly, there are overlapping divisions between the formal and informal sectors in the e-waste recycling cycle, resulting in unnecessary competition and waste of resources. The informal sector is most efficient during the collection and pre-processing stages, whilst the formal sector performs much better in metal recovery operation. Therefore, it is important to exert the comparative advantages of each sector and to build cooperative relationships between them. Government may consider integrating informal collection with formal recycling system and utilising informal manual sorting and disassembly to improve the overall recovery rate of e-waste in China.