No one wants to pay more for anything than they have to. What is the price of supposedly cheap manufacturing in terms of the amount it costs to workers wellbeing, and the environment around them?

In the main media have been stories of product recalls from toys to pet food to pharmaceuticals. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has recalled millions of toys believed to contain unsafe levels of lead paint. Prior to 2007 American Independence Day, the first Chinese-made fireworks were recalled. CPSC warned over 13,000 300 Shot Saturn Missiles Battery Fireworks may travel in unexpected and dangerous directions, posing special hazards to eyes and bystanders. Other items include over-worked power boards that don't trip circuits, risking fires, property damage and loss of life?

These are just the problems to consumers of cheap goods. In the production process there can be unsafe conditions for workers, and environmental damage surrounding them.
The United Nations estimates that up to 50 million tons of e-waste is thrown away world-wide each year. According to China's State Environmental Protection Administration much of this is shipped to China, although laws basically ban e-waste imports. The high cost of disposing and recycling of electronic waste in developed countries is a contributing factor to this. Increasing landfill costs has made several European countries, and US states ban the disposal of e-waste in landfills or by incineration.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn't regulate old electronics exports such as mobile phones and circuit boards in either a "shredded" or intact form, because it considers them non-hazardous. This is being considered. There is a Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, in San Jose, California focused on the environmental impact of the high-tech industry. Currently U.S. consumers and businesses send old electronics to recycling firms often innocuously. Firms then sell the electronics to dealers in the U.S., who sell them to dealers in China. Chinese companies buy the e-waste and strip lead and other re-sellable materials from it and often discard harmful materials along the way, adding to local pollution.
However workers can be unaware of the dangers of pollution. For example workers in Guiyu breakdown every piece of equipment to its smallest components. Some place circuit boards in open acid baths to separate precious metals including the tiny quantities of gold and palladium they contain. Plastics are burnt to separate plastic from scrap metal. Remaining combustibles are left to burn in open fires polluting the air with plastic, rubber and paint remains.

Greenpeace has tested the streams in the Guiyu area and found acid baths leaching into them leaving streams with a strongly acidic Ph. The Guiyu price of water is ten times more than in Chendian, the neighbouring township where Guiyu's water is sourced.
The economics of e-waste disposal in Guiyu can provide a profitable living more than in other areas. However over two decades incomes in the area have risen sharply, while the quality of the environment has fallen.

What cheap production fails to pay for now can only costs more currently and longer term in externalities i.e. the environment, and individuals health. As other parts of the world are evolving to reporting mechanisms such as a balanced scorecard and triple bottom line accounting how is it that China’s phenomenal production is only viewed with narrow short term margins?

Of interest: www.etoxics.org – Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/