To cut down on waste and protect the environment Shanghai should
ensure mobile phone manufacturers use the same kind of battery in
all handsets, a member of the city's Committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference suggested yesterday.
The picture shows China
Mobile, Motorola and Nokia jointly sponsored a "Green Box
Environmental Project" last year designed to ensure the recycling
of discarded mobile phones and batteries.
Zhu Jianguo said Shanghai should become a leader in the
unification of handset batteries.
If the 400 million cell phone users in China changed handsets on
average every two years and used two batteries each the country
would discard 400 million batteries a year, Zhu explained. But if
the system was unified people could continue to use their old
batteries even when they purchased new phones.
Yu Jinbiao, president of the handset committee of the Shanghai
Electronic Products Repair Service Association, said the city
didn't have a facility big enough to deal with level of waste
batteries.
"A battery will pollute six cubic meters of water which can
supply a person for their entire life," Yu pointed out. "Those
discarded batteries, if not collected and recycled properly, will
finally enter the Huangpu River and cause heavy metal
pollution."
Yu said Zhu's idea could work. "It's a creative and feasible
suggestion if the government is willing to accept it."
Two other delegates, Huang Farong and Chen Yingnan, suggested
that residents should hand over used batteries or pay more when
purchasing replacements.?
Their proposal calls for battery retailers to return used
batteries to the original manufacturers. They'd then be responsible
for giving them to the environmental protection bureau for final
disposal.
They said a campaign to encourage people to deposit used
batteries in recycling boxes in residential complexes and some
stores hadn't been successful. Compulsory government rules were
required for recycling to work.
(China.org.cn, Shanghai Daily February 2, 2007)
