When he first started working two decades ago in Nhat Tao market, Ho Chi Minh City’s biggest informal recycling market, he usually salvaged computers with bulky monitors and heavy processors. Now he works mostly with laptops and the occasional MacBook.
“We are currently generating e-waste at an unprecedented rate,” said Garam Bel, e-waste officer at the UN’s International Telecommunication Union. He works 11 hours a day for a monthly salary of around $470—about 2 1/2 times the minimum wage in Vietnam’s biggest and most expensive city—with quick meals as his only breaks.
In Vietnam, for instance, waste workers fan out to people’s homes and collect waste that can be salvaged from bins at street corners. Others, like Nguyen, have established networks to acquire discarded electronics.Formal recycling companies typically have certifications for dismantling and recycle electronic devices using sophisticated machinery. They also take more precautions for the health risks of e-waste, which can include toxic components.
Such collaborations are already being attempted in some places. In the Indian capital of New Delhi, for instance, a company called EcoWork has built a co-working space where informal recyclers can dismantle their waste. They can use modern machines to do it more safely, and aggregating it means better prices while also saving on transportation costs. And that makes it easier for companies that want to buy the salvaged materials at a scale that isn’t possible otherwise.
The Southeast Asian nation is among the few countries in the region with laws to deal with e-waste. It set up a national plan to manage e-waste in 2020, aiming to collect and treat 70% of it by 2025, and has been trying to integrate informal workers into formal systems to give them better protections.