For lead, the trip to China from the U.S. typically goes something like this: U.S. consumers and businesses send their old electronics to recycling firms -- often by way of innocuous recycling drives. Some of those firms then sell the electronics to dealers in the U.S., who sell them to dealers in China. Chinese companies buy the e-waste and strip lead and other re-sellable materials from it -- often discarding harmful materials along the way, adding to local pollution. Those firms then sell the recovered lead to alloy makers like Ms. Liu, who provide it to Chinese manufacturers. The lead makes its way -- sometimes at toxic levels -- into trinkets sold to consumers in the U.S.

In Yiwu [animportant hub for low-priced Chinese exports], jewelry sellers make no secret of using toxic lead alloy in their products. They insist buyers know what they're getting and say using lead is the only way to offer the low prices that foreign purchasers are willing to pay.
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Some manufacturers say they are moving away from lead alloy at the request of customers, especially those from the U.S. and Western Europe. Nearly all say that, if a buyer wants them to, factories can lower the lead content of their products. "People can choose. We give them whatever they want," says Ni Lanzhen, a wholesaler of jewelry and trinkets, including a tiny ring topped with a lead flower. "But most of the market is lead alloy."