AUTHORS: Kristof Geeraerts-Konar Mutafoglu-Andrea Illes

As part of the European Union Action to Fight Environmental Crime (EFFACE) project quantitative assessment and economic valuation of the impacts of environmental crimes was carried out. The work focused on five thematic areas, with IEEP being responsible for conducting a quantitative and monetary analysis of illegal e-waste shipments from the European Union to China.

The report finds that despite the growing body of literature available on illegal e-waste shipments from the EU to China there are considerable issues with data availability and quality. Data on the volumes of illegally exported e-waste from the EU to China are not fully reliable as the amount of the illegal share of the exported e-waste is – by definition – not tracked. Furthermore, due to the lack of data, calculations of the environmental, human health and economic impacts of these illegal shipments often have to build on a range of assumptions and extrapolations. For instance, the report outlines the links between e-waste exposure and different diseases and then uses this data to provide a more detailed quantification of the impacts of lead poisoning resulting from e-waste exposure on children’s neurological development, expressed in terms of children’s IQ scores.

The whole set of reports on quantified impacts and costs of different types of environmental crimes can be accessed at: http://efface.eu/reports-quantified-impacts-and-costs-environmental-crime

More information about the EFFACE project can be accessed at: http://efface.eu/

Image courtesy of: Mosman Council