Mounds
of decaying air conditioners, piles of abandoned electronics and
tenements built among the trash … Reuters photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon
has documented the lives of residents of Dongxiaokou, a village outside
Beijing and home to a large electronic-waste recycling centre, for a
look at life amid the digital ruins
A recycling workers' tenement house in Dongxiaokou. According to Kim Kyung-Hoon, villagers have not profited greatly from the booming market in electronic cast-offs-Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
From air conditioners to
fridges, China is reportedly the second-biggest producer, after the US,
of electronic waste, according to the China Association of Environmental
Protection Industry
Life among the ruins … a recycling worker walks through waste strewn about a tenement house
Migrant workers repair or sell as scrap discarded electrical and electronic products 
According to Reuters photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon, hundreds people gather e-waste from households in downtown Beijing Not all e-waste can be
recycled. Scrap goes for a reported 1RMB (9 pence) per kilogramme; a
rebuilt air conditioner is said to fetch around 1,000RMB 
A villager dismantles an air conditioner. After electronics are repaired, wholesale dealers reportedly sell them to new owners in other rural areas
'Pollutants from the
recycling and disposal process have turned the water a strange colour,
and the small stream in the village is tainted with a rancid smell,'
reports Kyung-Hoon, who says that piles of rubbish that can't be
recycled surround the village 
Along with the risks of
handling e-waste, residents of Dongxiaokou live with poor infrastructure
and sanitation facilities, says Kyung-Hoon 
A view of children at play 
'The poorer rubbish
collectors, who cannot afford their own recycling business, hunt for
leftovers from the others,' says Kyung-Hoon, "digging up the polluted
soil with their bare hands to find the last scraps of metal that have
been left behind." 
'The costs of recycling,
both to the environment and their own health, are far from the
villagers’ minds,' Kyung-Hoon reports. They're concerned, he says, with
the reported demolition of Dongxiaokou for an urban development project 
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