scholarly journals Electronic Waste, an Environmental Problem Exported to Developing Countries: The GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5302
Author(s):  
Samuel Abalansa ◽  
Badr El Mahrad ◽  
John Icely ◽  
Alice Newton

Electronic waste (e-waste) is a rapidly developing environmental problem particularly for the most developed countries. There are technological solutions for processing it, but these are costly, and the cheaper option for most developed countries has been to export most of the waste to less developed countries. There are various laws and policies for regulating the processing of e-waste at different governance scales such as the international Basel Convention, the regional Bamoko Convention, and various national laws. However, many of the regulations are not fully implemented and there is substantial financial pressure to maintain the jobs created for processing e-waste. Mexico, Brazil, Ghana Nigeria, India, and China have been selected for a more detailed study of the transboundary movements of e-waste. This includes a systematic review of existing literature, the application of the Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, Response (DPSIR) framework for analysing complex problems associated with social ecological systems, and the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for evaluating the environmental impact of electronic devices from their manufacture through to their final disposal. Japan, Italy, Switzerland, and Norway have been selected for the LCA to show how e-waste is diverted to developing countries, as there is not sufficient data available for the assessment from the selected developing countries. GOOD, BAD and UGLY outcomes have been identified from this study: the GOOD is the creation of jobs and the use of e-waste as a source of raw materials; the BAD is the exacerbation of the already poor environmental conditions in developing countries; the UGLY is the negative impact on the health of workers processing e-waste due to a wide range of toxic components in this waste. There are a number of management options that are available to reduce the impact of the BAD and the UGLY, such as adopting the concept of a circular economy, urban mining, reducing loopholes and improving existing policies and regulations, as well as reducing the disparity in income between the top and bottom of the management hierarchy for e-waste disposal. The overarching message is a request for developed countries to help developing countries in the fight against e-waste, rather than exporting their environmental problems to these poorer regions.

2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-335
Author(s):  
Abubakr Saeed ◽  
Yuhua Ding ◽  
Shawkat Hammoudeh ◽  
Ishtiaq Ahmad

This study examines the relationship between terrorism and economic openness that takes into account both the number and intensity of terrorist incidents and the impact of government military expenditures on trade-GDP and foreign direct investment-GDP ratios for both developed and developing countries. It uses the dynamic GMM method to account for endogeneity in the variables. Deaths caused by terrorism have a significant negative impact on FDI flows, and the number of terrorist attacks is also found to be significant in hampering the countries’ ability to trade with other nations. The study also demonstrates that the developing countries exhibit almost similar results to our main analysis. The developed countries exhibit a negative impact of terrorism, but the regression results are not significant.


2015 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Gil Avnimelech ◽  
Yaron Zelekha

There is a consensus that corruption may result in high societal costs. A growing body of research reveals the negative effects of corruption on a variety of economic indicators. This chapter presents a literature review on the impact of corruption on entrepreneurship. It allows us to suggest that one of the transition channels through which corruption has impacted growth is entrepreneurship. The main channels in which corruption impacts entrepreneurship is through reduced incentives for entrepreneurial activity and reduced trust within the system. The authors present evidence that the negative impact of an incremental increase in the level of corruption on entrepreneurship is more harmful in developed countries than in developing countries. Thus, they stress the need for more research in this area with the aim of establishing appropriate frameworks for the fight of corruption in both developing and developed countries and suggest significant gains from anti-corruption efforts, especially in developed countries.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2095427
Author(s):  
Maribel Velasco Perez ◽  
Perla Xochitl Sotelo Navarro ◽  
Alethia Vazquez Morillas ◽  
Rosa María Espinosa Valdemar ◽  
Jéssica Paola Hermoso Lopez Araiza

Absorbent hygiene products (AHP) have received much interest due to the notion that their end-of-life (EoL) stage has high environmental impacts. Since the use of AHP will continue to rise in the foreseeable future, information that helps with a reduction in the environmental impacts of AHP through their life cycle is needed. This research presents an estimation of AHP in municipal waste, and it also reviews and discusses waste management options, available treatments at bench, pilot or full scale, and life cycle assessments (LCAs) available in the literature. Municipal waste of countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development contains on average 2.7% of baby nappies, 4.8% of adult nappies and 0.5% of sanitary pads (in weight), whereas that of Latin-American countries have 7.3%, 3.3%, and 0.9%, respectively. Management options for AHP waste in developed countries are landfilling and incineration, while in developing countries AHP are disposed of in dumpsites and landfills. Most LCAs identify significant environmental impacts in the production of raw materials, while EoL scenarios involving incineration and landfill were found to have a significant contribution to global warming potential. Substitution with alternative products has been suggested as a way of decreasing environmental impacts; however, their use frequently causes a trade-off on different impact categories. Municipalities could use a wide range of policy tools, such as extended producer responsibility systems, bans, levies, ecolabelling, or a combination of these, to reduce the environmental and economic burden of AHP waste.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (Special) ◽  
pp. 154-162
Author(s):  
Mohammad Abdulmahdi Amin Alfaouri

In the last few decades, the developing countries have witnessed a remarkable increase in the infringement of intellectual property rights thus conventions and treaties were held to reduce these infringements, in particular, the TRIPS Treaty (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights).This study attempts to explain the causes of intellectual property rights infringements and the efficient means for intellectual property rights protections by taking Jordan as an example. The study finds that TRIPS Treaty, which is the latest international action to enhance the protection level, consumer's ethical attitude, development expenditure, economic policies, weakness of law enforcement, and low-income in developing countries are important factors to explain the level of IP protection. Because of all of these, the infringements became a phenomenon in developing countries that firstly need amendments in their intellectual property laws to apply the criminal sanctions jointly by civil remedies, owing to the fact of the shock value or general deterrence to enhance the commitment to the law and to remit this phenomenon, furthermore, the state will follow up on the cost of prosecution without involving the owners of the rights personally in many cases. On the other hand, literature revealed that the infringements of IPRs became a phenomenon because the TRIPS Treaty prepared for the benefits of the large companies, thus the developing countries' legislation, economic and consumer's ethical attitude got affected negatively. In addition, the developed countries threatened them by sanctions if they didn't make retroactively amendments on their legislation, which also led to prevent them to adopt the necessary measures that mitigate the negative impact on their economic and social life. Regarding the applied research method, this paper used secondary data sources and applied the descriptive and comparative analytical legal approaches to illustrate the most important points and findings on the topic.


Author(s):  
Gil Avnimelech ◽  
Yaron Zelekha

There is a consensus that corruption may result in high societal costs. A growing body of research reveals the negative effects of corruption on a variety of economic indicators. This chapter presents a literature review on the impact of corruption on entrepreneurship. It allows us to suggest that one of the transition channels through which corruption has impacted growth is entrepreneurship. The main channels in which corruption impacts entrepreneurship is through reduced incentives for entrepreneurial activity and reduced trust within the system. The authors present evidence that the negative impact of an incremental increase in the level of corruption on entrepreneurship is more harmful in developed countries than in developing countries. Thus, they stress the need for more research in this area with the aim of establishing appropriate frameworks for the fight of corruption in both developing and developed countries and suggest significant gains from anti-corruption efforts, especially in developed countries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pei-Chien Lin ◽  
Ho-Chuan Huang ◽  
Xiaojian Liu

AbstractBy applying an endogenous switching regression model to a sample of 64 countries, this article explores whether the effect of trade openness on inflation is influenced by the adoption of inflation targeting (IT). The outcome indicates that, while there exists a significant and negative impact of trade openness on inflation in the non-IT countries with flexible exchange rate system, the effect is negligible in the IT economies. In addition, the above differential inflation effect of trade openness across IT and non-IT regimes is only present in the developing subsample with flexible exchange rate system, but not the developed counterpart. Moreover, apart from trade openness, financial openness reinforces inflation in those developing countries not adopting IT, whereas no such significant effect is found in developing countries adopting IT. Instead of inflation, further results show that trade openness lowers inflation volatility both in developing and developed countries not adopting IT, yet the impact is smaller in developed country group. However, no such statistically significant link is found in developing and developed countries that adopt IT.


Author(s):  
Bei Liu ◽  
Hong Chen ◽  
Xin Gan

Work is a cornerstone of social development. Quantifying the impact on development of fluctuations in work hours is important because longer work hours increasingly seem to be the norm. Based on an integrative perspective that combines individual, organizational, and social factors, we constructed a model using data from 31 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The proposed model was used to test the effect of work hours on different levels and to propose feasible suggestions accordingly. The results show that people in developing countries work more hours per week than those in developed countries, and that males work longer hours than females. Furthermore, regression analysis shows that current work hours are having a negative impact on development in OECD countries, especially in developing countries where people are working longer hours. Longer hours, in other words, do not promote development effectively. Specifically, work hours at the individual level are negatively related to health. At the level of organization, work hours are a reverse indicator of organizational performance, and at the level of society, there is a negative relationship between work hours and economic development. This study provides support for the proposition by the International Labour Organization to reduce work hours, and it facilitates our understanding of the relationship between work hours and social development.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1258
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Likongwe ◽  
Frank B. Chimaimba ◽  
Sosten S. Chiotha ◽  
Treaser Mandevu ◽  
Lois Kamuyango ◽  
...  

Tree species diversity in urban green spaces supports the provision of a wide range of urban ecosystem services, well studied in developed countries and less so in developing countries, where little is discussed concerning the role of urban communities in addressing the eminent threat facing green spaces. A study was, therefore, conducted to assess the impact of community involvement in the management of urban green spaces, which is mostly left in the hands of the central government in most developing countries. Two hills, namely, Sadzi and Chiperoni hills, were selected within Zomba city, where the latter has no community involvement in managing it. Trees with diameters at breast height (DBH) of ≥5 cm were measured and identified to species level from 25 sampled plots (20 × 20 m each). The results found a total of 51 species, 40 genera and 17 families, with the Fabaceae family dominant in both hills. A Shannon index of above 3.0 was recorded from both hills, with a greater tree density for Sadzi hill at 695 trees/ha. Sadzi hill has gained more than a twofold increase in green cover, while Chiperoni has lost 10%. Despite being in the regenerating phase, the community management is contributing to urban green space provision, ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-666
Author(s):  
Francis Notzon

In recent years, interest in breast-feeding and infant-supplementation practices in the developing world has been growing. Numerous community, regional, and national studies have described the patterns of breast-feeding and, to a lesser extent, of supplementation in a wide range of low-income countries. Nevertheless, adequate documentation of national trends in breast-feeding is available for only a small number of developing countries, and trends in supplementation remain to be described. The apparent decline in breast-feeding in the developing world has been the subject of numerous articles describing the impact of this trend on infant morbidity and mortality, fertility levels, and family finances. Frequently, the examples used to illustrate the decrease in breast-feeding are methedologically flawed; they use nonrepresentative or noncomparable samples, for example, or make implicit assumptions about past breast-feeding practices. In spite of such shortcomings, the consistent reports of important declines appear to indicate that some basic changes are taking place in breast-feeding practices in certain areas of the developing world. The fact that these changes seem to be following the general pattern of breast-feeding decline that occurred at earlier times in developed countries adds to their plausibility. Although a general awareness of changes in lactation in the developing world now prevails, the documentation of this trend is far from complete. Even for those countries in which trends have been appropriately measured, the amount and pattern of change may vary widely from country to country. In most of the countries with information on breast-feeding trends, recent declines have occurred, although the decreases range from sharp to moderate.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-377
Author(s):  
Suadiq Mehammed Hailu ◽  
Gamze Vural

In this study, we investigate the stock markets’ reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak. For this purpose, we collected daily cumulative confirmed cases, cumulative deaths, and stock index price data from Australia, Germany, Japan, UK, USA, Brazil, China, Malaysia, South Africa, and Turkey over the period from March 11, 2020, to December 31, 2020, and examined using multiple and panel data regression. Findings reveal that the cumulative daily infection cases have a significant negative impact on the entire and first sub-period covering from March 11 to June 30, 2020. However, this negative impact of cumulative infection cases on the stock market was significant only among developed countries. In contrast, the cumulative death rate was not a fundamental factor that explains stock market price changes. The result also indicated that exchange rate has a significant negative impact on both developed and developing countries’ stock markets. The overall findings of the study indicated that COVID-19 outbreak has a negative significant impact on stock markets and this impact continue until the end of the 2020 second quarter and then the impact became insignificant. Besides, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was different in developed and developing countries and even different from country to country.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document