According to a report by the United Nations University, the country’s electronic waste has doubled since 2010.
"With China's rapid economic growth, China's consumption of electronic products and waste are growing fast. Especially products like cellphones and computers have a short lifespan," says waste management researcher Professor Jiang Jianguo from Beijing's Tsinghua University.
China’s increasingly wealthy and image conscious consumers are buying the latest good, and trashing them, faster than ever before. And the country’s recycling system is struggling to keep up.
Up to 90 per cent of China’s electronic waste is processed by unregulated backyard ‘mum and pop’ workshops.
Street collectors pick-up discarded goods throughout the city and bring them to these informal centers where they're dismantled.
Elements which can be resold are separated and sent to factories and other third parties.
Informal waste processing is a billion-dollar industry in China.
It’s dirty and dangerous work, and also illegal. Toxic chemicals from e-waste can damage health and the environment.
Eric Liu from Greenpeace's Beijing office says the system is inefficient and unsustainable.
"After these people collect the waste they will send it to whoever pays them the most. Those people don't think about whether it's legal or not, whether it's environmentally safe or not."
Guiyu in China’s south is known as the world’s biggest electronics graveyard.
It’s been cleaned up in recent years, but the water and soil remain heavily polluted.
"If this situation continues it will cause potential danger to the Chinese environment and public health," says Eric Liu.
In recent years China’s government has implemented new e-recycling measures, certifying 109 commercial e-waste processing centres nationwide.
But redirecting e-waste to safer channels is an uphill battle.
NGOs like Greenpeace are now lobbying manufacturers to take a bigger role in the recycling of products they produce.
