E-Waste
Recycling of electronic waste is one of the grave problems that India as a developing country is now facing. With the advancement of technology resulting in continuous upgrading of electronics and their omnipresence in every sphere of life, the disposal of electronic waste remains one of the largest problems the world is facing today.
Electronic waste is the discarded and antiquated electronic equipments including computers, equipment used in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), home appliances, audio and video products and all of their peripherals.Going by the survey of the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology(MAIT) in 2007, it was estimated that 1.347 lakh MT(metric tones) of e-waste was generated in the country in the year 2005, which is expected to increase to about 8.0 lakh MT by 2012. The total quantities of generated e-waste in India, during 2007, were 3, 32, 979 Metric Tonnes (MT). Considering the growth rate, the volume of e-waste will reach nearly 0.7 million MT by 2015 and 2 million MT by 2025.
The ways to reduce wastage of electronics, the policies to be implemented by the government so as to urge companies to develop durable electronic goods and use environment-friendly chemicals to produce these electronics is not what I am going to discuss in this space. This is a problem which every country faces and not something particular to India. Instead with this write-up I intend to throw some light on the problem India is facing with respect to the importing and recycling of electronic waste.
The current problem at hand is concerning the recycling of e-waste in India. Generally there are two ways to recycle e-waste, one being the formal method and the other being the non-formal method. The non-formal method involves collection of the e-waste from the rag pickers, disassembly of the products for their useable parts, components, modules, which have a good resale value. The rest of the material is chemically treated to recover precious metals. Due to the crude means by which it is done, it results in leaching of hazardous substances to the air, soil, and water. This recycling method has low efficiency and recovery is carried out only for valuable metals like gold, silver, aluminum, copper, etc. Other materials such as tantalum, cadmium, zinc, palladium etc. cannot be recovered. The formal method on the other hand involves advanced processing and technology, which is more efficient with respect to the recovery of metals, and is environment-friendly. The end-to-end solution of e-waste recycling is still not present in India.
In India, 95% of the e-waste is recycled by the non-formal method and 5% by the formal method. Due to the ease of availability of cheap labour and the lack of any requirement of of advance machinery, a lot of small businessmen have found it to be a lucrative and easy-to-setup venture. Local people are hired to burn the circuitry so as to disassemble the the resalable parts, totally in-cognizant of the damage this process causes on themselves and the environment. E-waste contains toxic substances like Lead, Cadmium,Mercury and poly-chlorinated biphenyls. The following are the harmful chemicals present in e-waste and the ill effects they cause in humans.
Mercury: Health effects include sensory impairment, dermatitis, memory loss, and muscle weakness. Environmental effects in animals include death, reduced fertility, slower growth and development.
Cadmium: Inhalation of cadmium can cause severe damage to the lungs and is also known to cause kidney damage.
Lead: Inhalation of lead may cause fertility problems in both men and women, high blood pressure, digestive issues and nerve disorders.
The above is a very perfunctory peek into the harmful chemicals released, in other words it is just the tip of an iceberg. For a more detailed study and analysis please refer to [].
This unregulation and lack of supervision on the part of the Indian government has turned India into an avenue for cheap recycling of e-waste. Annually, India imports a large amount of e-waste from the developed countries where the cost of recycling is much higher. Due to the unavailability of a complete formal recycling plant in India, all the imported e-waste is generally recycled non-formally thus damaging the environment. Recently there have been news articles citing that a lot of e-waste from developed countries is being smuggled into India, the primary reason for this being the improper policing of exports by the governments of these countries. I guess it is time that the government of India starts policing its imports and introduces laws restricting the import of e-waste before this issue snowballs into something bigger. According to a recent study, a lot of electronics come into India under the pretext of charity. And supposedly a large amount of this turns out to be obsolete, which then gets the dumped into land-fills thus becoming e-waste. I by no means the question the intentions of the donators, but the government should seek the help of an strategy developed on the basis of reuse time span of each waste category, that would help it in accepting electronics as charity. The damage that the recycling causes to the environment far outweighs the revenue and employment it produces in the country.
References
http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/charity-computers.html
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3229271.htm
Electronic waste is the discarded and antiquated electronic equipments including computers, equipment used in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), home appliances, audio and video products and all of their peripherals.Going by the survey of the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology(MAIT) in 2007, it was estimated that 1.347 lakh MT(metric tones) of e-waste was generated in the country in the year 2005, which is expected to increase to about 8.0 lakh MT by 2012. The total quantities of generated e-waste in India, during 2007, were 3, 32, 979 Metric Tonnes (MT). Considering the growth rate, the volume of e-waste will reach nearly 0.7 million MT by 2015 and 2 million MT by 2025.
The ways to reduce wastage of electronics, the policies to be implemented by the government so as to urge companies to develop durable electronic goods and use environment-friendly chemicals to produce these electronics is not what I am going to discuss in this space. This is a problem which every country faces and not something particular to India. Instead with this write-up I intend to throw some light on the problem India is facing with respect to the importing and recycling of electronic waste.
The current problem at hand is concerning the recycling of e-waste in India. Generally there are two ways to recycle e-waste, one being the formal method and the other being the non-formal method. The non-formal method involves collection of the e-waste from the rag pickers, disassembly of the products for their useable parts, components, modules, which have a good resale value. The rest of the material is chemically treated to recover precious metals. Due to the crude means by which it is done, it results in leaching of hazardous substances to the air, soil, and water. This recycling method has low efficiency and recovery is carried out only for valuable metals like gold, silver, aluminum, copper, etc. Other materials such as tantalum, cadmium, zinc, palladium etc. cannot be recovered. The formal method on the other hand involves advanced processing and technology, which is more efficient with respect to the recovery of metals, and is environment-friendly. The end-to-end solution of e-waste recycling is still not present in India.
In India, 95% of the e-waste is recycled by the non-formal method and 5% by the formal method. Due to the ease of availability of cheap labour and the lack of any requirement of of advance machinery, a lot of small businessmen have found it to be a lucrative and easy-to-setup venture. Local people are hired to burn the circuitry so as to disassemble the the resalable parts, totally in-cognizant of the damage this process causes on themselves and the environment. E-waste contains toxic substances like Lead, Cadmium,Mercury and poly-chlorinated biphenyls. The following are the harmful chemicals present in e-waste and the ill effects they cause in humans.
Mercury: Health effects include sensory impairment, dermatitis, memory loss, and muscle weakness. Environmental effects in animals include death, reduced fertility, slower growth and development.
Cadmium: Inhalation of cadmium can cause severe damage to the lungs and is also known to cause kidney damage.
Lead: Inhalation of lead may cause fertility problems in both men and women, high blood pressure, digestive issues and nerve disorders.
The above is a very perfunctory peek into the harmful chemicals released, in other words it is just the tip of an iceberg. For a more detailed study and analysis please refer to [].
This unregulation and lack of supervision on the part of the Indian government has turned India into an avenue for cheap recycling of e-waste. Annually, India imports a large amount of e-waste from the developed countries where the cost of recycling is much higher. Due to the unavailability of a complete formal recycling plant in India, all the imported e-waste is generally recycled non-formally thus damaging the environment. Recently there have been news articles citing that a lot of e-waste from developed countries is being smuggled into India, the primary reason for this being the improper policing of exports by the governments of these countries. I guess it is time that the government of India starts policing its imports and introduces laws restricting the import of e-waste before this issue snowballs into something bigger. According to a recent study, a lot of electronics come into India under the pretext of charity. And supposedly a large amount of this turns out to be obsolete, which then gets the dumped into land-fills thus becoming e-waste. I by no means the question the intentions of the donators, but the government should seek the help of an strategy developed on the basis of reuse time span of each waste category, that would help it in accepting electronics as charity. The damage that the recycling causes to the environment far outweighs the revenue and employment it produces in the country.
References
http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/charity-computers.html
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3229271.htm
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