Mapping International Flows of Electronic Waste
Lead Researcher and Department
Josh Lepawsky, Department of Geography, Memorial University and Chris McNabb, Department of Geography, Memorial University
Funding Resources
SSHRC Research Development Initiative
Summary
In this paper, we contribute some basic empirical knowledge about the geographies of e-waste by mapping the international trade in this commodity. The paper quantifies the directions and magnitude of this trade on a region-to-region basis at the global scale and examines the utility of the pollution haven hypothesis at a country-to-country scale for explaining the observed trade patterns.
It provides some background to the contemporary trade and traffic of e-waste through a discussion of the Basel Convention, the pollution haven hypothesis and a review of the emerging literature on e-waste. We quantify the global flow of e-waste using data available from the United Nations COMTRADE database. We discuss the overall patterns of this trade and then examine the utility of the pollution haven hypothesis as an explanation of the observed patterns. Here we demonstrate that the vast bulk of licit e-waste exports are traded intraregionally within major trading regions, rather than inter-regionally. We also find some support for a systematic relationship between countries with lower GDP per capita and their status as net importers of e-waste.
Our findings complicate, but do not contradict, the common assertion that poorer countries tend to be the recipients of wealthier countries’ e-waste exports. The paper concludes with a discussion of the conceptual implications of our findings for researching e-waste.
Published in: Canadian Geographer, Early View, September 28, 2009
Dates
2009
Keywords
Electronic waste, E-waste, Trade, Waste, Value, Moral geography
Locations
St. John's
Avalon Peninsula
Industry Sectors
Wholesale Electronic Markets, and Agents and Brokers (Wholesale Trade)
Thematic Categories
Recycling (Environment and Conservation)
Social Sciences (International Research)
International Trade
Departments
Geography, Faculty of Arts (STJ)