What do e-waste quantification studies of the people's Republic Of China tell us?

Abstract

With increasing exposure of the harm from electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) recycling in the People's Republic of China, it is an imperative that its generation and recycling be sufficiently regulated. Accurately depicting the rate of generation and disposal of e-waste is an important first step in planning for adequate formal e-waste logistics and treatment capacities. A critical review of the quantification studies on China's e-waste generation and disposal rates shows that there are large discrepancies in the predicted amounts of e-waste generated no matter the same or different methods of estimation were used. Moreover, even when agreements between studies are found, the agreed figures are not necessarily the correct figures. There appears to be an imminent need to increase the transparency of data collection and computation methods in these studies as the lack of such transparency is identified as the main reason for estimation uncertainty. Evident from this chapter, irresponsible citation practices are found to spread to academic studies already. It is urged that leading organizations in the academic community should consider establishing a platform devoting to the reporting of false or dubious citation. © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All Rights Reserved.