Department of Resource Management and Geography, Melbourne School of Land and Environment, The University of Melbourne, 221 Bouverie Street, Carlton, VIC 3010, Australia.
Waste Manag. 2011 Apr;31(4):731-42. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2010.11.006. Epub 2010 Dec 13.
Informal recycling is a new and expanding low cost recycling practice in managing Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE or e-waste). It occurs in many developing countries, including China, where current gaps in environmental management, high demand for second-hand electronic appliances and the norm of selling e-waste to individual collectors encourage the growth of a strong informal recycling sector. This paper gathers information on informal e-waste management, takes a look at its particular manifestations in China and identifies some of the main difficulties of the current Chinese approach. Informal e-waste recycling is not only associated with serious environmental and health impacts, but also the supply deficiency of formal recyclers and the safety problems of remanufactured electronic products. Experiences already show that simply prohibiting or competing with the informal collectors and informal recyclers is not an effective solution. New formal e-waste recycling systems should take existing informal sectors into account, and more policies need to be made to improve recycling rates, working conditions and the efficiency of involved informal players. A key issue for China's e-waste management is how to set up incentives for informal recyclers so as to reduce improper recycling activities and to divert more e-waste flow into the formal recycling sector.
非正式回收是一种新兴且不断扩大的低成本回收处理废弃电气电子设备（WEEE 或电子垃圾）的实践。它发生在许多发展中国家，包括中国，这些国家目前在环境管理方面存在差距，对二手电器的需求很高，以及将电子垃圾出售给个体收集者的规范，这些都助长了强大的非正式回收行业的发展。本文收集了有关非正式电子废物管理的信息，考察了其在中国的特殊表现形式，并确定了当前中国方法的一些主要困难。非正式电子废物回收不仅与严重的环境和健康影响有关，还与正规回收者的供应短缺以及再制造电子产品的安全问题有关。经验已经表明，简单地禁止或与非正式收集者和非正式回收者竞争并不是一个有效的解决方案。新的正式电子废物回收系统应考虑到现有的非正式部门，并制定更多政策来提高回收率、改善工作条件和提高参与非正式活动的各方的效率。中国电子废物管理的一个关键问题是如何为非正式回收者设置激励措施，以减少不当的回收活动，并将更多的电子废物流向正规回收部门。
