A town in southern China that's known as one of the world's most notorious destinations for e-scrap is undergoing a government-mandated makeover. According to reports last month from English-language media outlets in China, all informal e-scrap processors in Guiyu will be required to move their businesses to a newly built industrial park by the start of 2016. As of late November, 400 "large workshops" had been persuaded to make the move. Still, approximately 3,000 small businesses had yet to vacate their operations, news reports indicated. The e-scrap watchdog group that helped bring the world's focus to Guiyu confirmed that changes are taking place there. The Seattle-based Basel Action Network (BAN) issued a press release in December that noted its executive director, Jim Puckett, earlier that month made an unannounced visit to Guiyu alongside the leader of a Chinese environmental group. The release noted many former sites formerly used for crude processing of scrap electronics had been abandoned.
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