"Every part can be turned into a treasure except dust," according to an industry insider. A discarded TV set, at an electronic waste treatment plant in southwest China's Chongqing municipality, can be disassembled into 23 parts.

(Photo/Xinhua)

As one of the first batch of pilot "waste-free cities," Chongqing has established a recycling system for waste electrical and electronic products. Electrical appliance waste, such as televisions, refrigerators and computers, can be disassembled in factories so that useful parts like copper, iron and circuit boards can be obtained.

Some parts become products for sale, whereas others are further disposed of. Last year, Chongqing recycled 1.8 million sets of waste electrical and electronic products; the municipality will further extend the disposal industry chain of waste, further improving the recycling utilization of resources.

Hu Rengui, owner of a waste recycling station, revealed that his station could collect nearly 30,000 sets of waste appliances annually, which is sent to disassembly companies every week.

In Banan district of Chongqing, around 10 similar recycling stations can be found.

"It wasn't like this before," said Hu, adding that that before the birth of disassembly companies, a lot of waste electrical appliances had been dismantled in the small recycling stations. Therefore, it was inevitable that some harmful substances would flow out and pollute the environment, due to the lack of technology in the stations.

From an economic point of view, the efficiency of the previous disassembly method was also relatively low, with some parts being discarded at will without full disassembly, resulting in a waste of resources to a certain extent.

"At present, I don’t have to worry about this. We can just leave the tough work to professional people. All I have to do is be a middleman," Hu said.

"We are just like bomb disposal experts for old appliances. For example, we have special equipment to process the compressor in a refrigerator; we will puncture it and suck out the Freon. Afterwards, we will put the compressor back together to deal with it," said Yi Jianjun, deputy general manager of Chongqing Zhongtian Electronic Waste Treatment Co., Ltd., a specialized recycling company for waste appliances.

Yi stressed that the most vital step in recycling waste electrical appliances is to ensure environmental protection.