E-Waste Management - An Emerging Environmental and Health IssueE-Waste Management - An Emerging Environmental and Health Issue

Electronic waste or e-waste is one of the rapidly growing environmental problems of the world. In India, the electronic waste management assumes greater significance not only due to the generation of our own waste but also dumping of-waste particularly computer waste from the developed countries. With extensively using computers and electronic equipments and people dumping old electronic goods for new ones, the amount of-Waste generated has been steadily increasing .In the absence of proper disposal, they find their way to scrap dealers. Mountains of e-waste - discarded parts of computers, mobile phones and other consumer electronics equipment are quietly creating a new environmental problem in India. E-waste is mostly generated in large cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore where a complex e-waste handling infra-structure has developed mainly based on a long tradition of waste recycling. This is mainly operated by a very entrepreneurial informal sector. Rag pickers and waste dealers find it easy to adapt to the new waste stream, resulting in a large number of new businesses focusing on the re-use of components or extraction of secondary raw materials. So far, the e-waste recycling system is purely market driven. Some of the recycling processes are extremely harmful and have negative impacts on the workers’ health and the environment. There is an urgent need for improvement in e-waste management covering technological improvement ,institutional arrangement , operational plan, protective protocol for workers , working in e-waste disposal and last but not the least education of general population about this emerging issue posing a threat to the environment as well as public health.

INTRODUCTION

Electronic waste or e-waste is one of the rapidly growing environmental problems of the world. In India, the electronic waste management assumes greater significance not only due to the generation of our own waste but also dumping of-waste particularly computer waste from the developed countries. With extensively using computers and electronic equipments and people dumping old electronic goods for new ones, the amount of-Waste generated has been steadily increasing .In the absence of proper disposal, they find their way to scrap dealers. Mountains of e-waste - discarded parts of computers, mobile phones and other consumer electronics equipment are quietly creating a new environmental problem in India.

E-waste is mostly generated in large cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore where a complex e-waste handling infra-structure has developed mainly based on a long tradition of waste recycling. This is mainly operated by a very entrepreneurial informal sector. Rag pickers and waste dealers find it easy to adapt to the new waste stream, resulting in a large number of new businesses focusing on the re-use of components or extraction of secondary raw materials. So far, the e-waste recycling system is purely market driven.
Some of the recycling processes are extremely harmful and have negative impacts on the workers‘ health and the environment. There is an urgent need for improvement in e-waste management covering technological improvement ,institutional arrangement , operational plan, protective protocol for workers , working in e-waste disposal and last but not the least education of general population about this emerging issue posing a threat to the environment as well as public health.

Definition of e-waste

Electronic waste, popularly known as ‘e-waste’ can be defined as electronic equipments / products connected with  power plug, batteries which have become obsolete due to advancement in technology changes in fashion, style and status nearing the end of their useful life.  E-waste encompasses ever growing range of obsolete electronic devices such as computers, servers, main frames, monitors, TVs & display devices, telecommunication devices such as cellular phones & pagers, calculators, audio and video devices, printers, scanners, copiers and fax machines besides refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, and microwave ovens, e-waste also covers recording devices such as DVDs, CDs, floppies, tapes, printing cartridges, military electronic waste, automobile catalytic converters, electronic components such as chips, processors, mother boards, printed circuit boards, industrial electronics such as sensors, alarms, sirens, security devices, automobile electronic devices.
Electronic waste or e-waste is one of the rapidly growing environmental problems of the world. In India, the electronic waste management assumes greater significance not only due to the generation of our own waste but also dumping of waste particularly computer waste from the developed countries.

With extensively using computers and electronic equipments and people dumping old electronic goods for new ones, the amount of E-Waste generated has been steadily increasing. There is an estimate that the total obsolete computers originating from government offices, business houses, industries and household is of the order of  2 million nos. Manufactures and assemblers in a single calendar year, estimated to produce around 1200 tons of electronic scrap. It should be noted that obsolesence rate of personal computers (PC) is one in every two years. The consumers find it convenient to buy a new computer rather than upgrade the old one due to the changing configuration, technology and the attractive offers of the manufacturers. At present Bangalore alone generates about 8000 tonnes of computer waste annually and in the absence of proper disposal, they find their way to scrap dealers.

Valuable Materials in E-waste:

Electronic goods are composed of hundreds of different materials, often of high value. Gold, Platinum, Silver, Copper etc. are valuable materials which recyclers recover from e-waste. A study in 1996 found that more than 50% of the weight of an average desktop computer was in plastics, iron and aluminium. While precious metals as a percentage of the total weight were relatively small, the concentration of such metals, like Gold, was much found to be higher in e-waste than found in naturally occurring mineral ore.


Indian Scenario:
India generated 3.3 lakh tonnes e-waste in 2007 and is expected to touch 4.7 lakh tonnes by 2011, citing the press release of the inventory study of MAIT and GTZ presented in December 2007. The illegal import of e-waste from abroad added another 50 tonnes to the Indian-origined. Other findings of the study were that out of the material entering the waste stream, only 5% is recycled by authorized recyclers. The rest is treated by the informal sector. But as only 6% of the organizations observed for the study had a disposal policy for e-waste, no one wonders why the material is entering the uncontrolled e-waste recycling stream. Considering. the big potential of harming the environment and the human health, this study shows alarming results.
India a dumping ground
In India, e-waste is mostly generated in large cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. In these cities a complex e-waste handling infra-structure has developed mainly based on a long tradition of waste recycling. This is mainly operated by a very entrepreneurial informal sector. Rag pickers and waste dealers found it easy to adapt to the new waste stream, resulting in a large number of new businesses focusing on the re-use of components or extraction of secondary raw materials. So far, the e-waste recycling system is purely market driven.  Some of the recycling processes are extremely harmful and have negative impacts on the workers health and the environment. A study on the burning of printed wiring boards that was conducted in 2004 showed an alarming concentration of dioxins in the surrounding areas in which open burning was practiced. These toxins cause an increased risk of cancer if inhaled by workers and local residents or by entering the food chain via crops from the surrounding fields
End-of-life products find their way to recycling yards in countries such as India and China, where poorly-protected workers dismantle them, often by hand, in appalling conditions. About 25,000 workers are employed at scrap-yards in Delhi alone, where 10,000 to 20,000 tons of e-waste are handled every year, with computers accounting for 25 percent of it. Other e-waste scrap-yards exist in Meerut, Ferozabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai. About 80 percent of the e-waste generated in the US is exported to India, China and Pakistan, and unorganised recycling and backyard scrap-trading forms close to 100 percent of total e-waste processing activity. Many of India’s corporations burn e-waste such as PC monitors, PCBs, CDs, motherboards, cables, toner cartridges, light bulbs and tube-lights in the open along with garbage, releasing large amounts of mercury and lead into the atmosphere.
Due to the lack of governmental legislations on e-waste, standards for disposal, proper mechanism for handling these toxic hi-tech products, mostly end up in landfills or partly recycled in a unhygienic conditions and partly thrown into waste streams. Computer waste is generated from the individual households; the government, public and private sectors; computer retailers; manufacturers; foreign embassies; secondary markets of old PCs. Of these, the biggest source of PC scrap is foreign countries that export huge computer waste in the form of reusable components. The e-waste inventory in India, based on this installed base and obsolescence rate for 2005, was estimated to be 146180.00 tonnes. This is expected to exceed 8,00,000 tonnes by 2012. Sixty-five cities in India generate more than 60% of the total e-waste generated. Mumbai is the top generator of ewaste with Delhi second followed by Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata. India also gets a huge quantity of e-waste from Europe and America.


Recycling
E-waste heads to India, China and Bangladesh because computer "recycling" is a good business, with much money to be made. Computer recycling involves employing people to strip down the computers and extract parts that can be used again in machines to be sold on the high street.
The rest is then burned or dumped, both of which are potentially highly hazardous to the environment. The process of extraction uses all kinds of chemicals, like acids - which then get dumped into the soil and go into the groundwater. When you burn things like PVC-covered copper wire, you have emissions of very toxic chemicals like dioxins, which get released into the local environment."  There are also fears that the recycling process, an unregulated industry in India, is also very harmful to the health of those employed to do it. In particular, the job involves exposure to a number of toxic chemicals both as part of the recycling process and within the computers themselves.
Recycle steps in India
•    Manual Dismantling: The accrued electronic and electric waste in India is dismantled and sorted manually to fractions printed wiring boards (PWB), cathode ray tubes (CRT),
cables, plastics, metals, condensers and other, nowadays invaluable materials like batteries, LCDs or wood. The valuable fractions are treated in refining and conditioning processes

•    Refining and Conditioning : The different e-waste fractions are processed to directly reusable components and to secondary raw materials in a variety of refining and conditioning processes.

•    Final Disposal: Solid waste is deposited in a municipal landfill. Systematic gas and water collecting systems are not installed; hence significant emissions to water and air are caused. The site is crowded with informal waste pickers. The people collect valuable materials for recycling

Slow Poisoning

Recycling is the livelihood of the unorganised recyclers. Due to lack of awareness, they are risking their health and the environment as well. They use strong acids to retrieve precious metals such as gold. Working in poorly-ventilated enclosed areas without masks and technical expertise results in exposure to dangerous and slow-poisoning chemicals. The trade in e-waste is camouflaged and is a thriving business in India. It is conducted under the pretext of obtaining ‘reusable’ equipment or ‘donations’ from developed nations. Trade in e-waste, like that in other scrap, is dominated by the ‘informal’ sector. Although the waste trade sector in India is known as part of the ‘informal’ sector, it has a system that is highly organised with extensive co-ordination in an established network. The recycling of e-waste is undertaken in an unscientific manner, impacting both health and environment. In India, organised recycling companies extract metals through copper smelting, which is followed by pulverisation. The use of chemicals for bleaching is avoided. They also ensure safety aspects such as employees wearing masks. The problem is compounded by the fact that imported equipment is brought in duty-free and is Customs-bound. It is high time that the Government and port authorities in India implement the Hazardous Waste Rules and check the illegal imports of e-waste at the entry point itself. The awareness on the hazardous effects of e-waste has not yet sunk in, barring a handful of IT and consumer electronics firms.
Effect on Environment and Health
If these electronic items are discarded with other household garbage, the toxics pose a threat to both health and vital components of the ecosystem. In view of the ill-effects of hazardous wastes to both environment and health, several countries exhorted the need for a global agreement to address the problems and challenges posed by hazardous waste.  The following contents highlight the effects of e-waste on health  :         

Studies have consistently shown that electronic waste from devices like mobile phones, PDA's and digital cameras contains toxins that are damaging to our environment. That is why recycling charity donations are so important. When you donate your cell phone, you are helping to keep toxic elements out of landfills. Consider the harm you are averting when you donate cell phones to charity:
Management of e-waste
In industries management of e-waste should begin at the point of generation. It is estimated that 75% of electronic items are stored due to uncertainty of how to manage it. This can be done by waste minimization techniques and by sustainable product design. Waste minimization in industries involves adopting:
•    Inventory management,
•    Production-process modification,
•    Volume reduction,
•    Recovery and reuse.
Inventory management
Proper control over the materials used in the manufacturing process is an important way to reduce waste generation. By reducing both the quantity of hazardous materials used in the process and the amount of excess raw materials in stock, the quantity of waste generated can be reduced. This can be done in two ways i.e. establishing material-purchase review and control procedures and inventory tracking system.
Production-process modification
Changes can be made in the production process, which will reduce waste generation. This reduction can be accomplished by changing the materials used to make the product or by the more efficient use of input materials in the production process or both Hazardous materials used in either a product formulation or a production process may be replaced with a less hazardous or non-hazardous material.
Volume reduction
Volume reduction includes those techniques that remove the hazardous portion of a waste from a non-hazardous portion. These techniques are usually to reduce the volume, and thus the cost of disposing of a waste material.
Recovery and reuse
This technique could eliminate waste disposal costs, reduce raw material costs and provide income from a salable waste. Waste can be recovered on-site, or at an off-site recovery facility, or through inter industry exchange. However recycling of hazardous products has little environmental benefit if it simply moves the hazards into secondary products that eventually have to be disposed of.

CONCLUSION

It can be concluded that E-waste is rapidly growing problems of the world affecting the environment.. E-waste is generally created in large quantities in Metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. E-waste is primarily need to be recycled. There is an urgent requirement for the industries to change the production process, which could reduce waste generation. This is possible by using raw materials which is not hazardous. This can be done in two ways i.e. establishing material-purchase review and control procedures and inventory tracking system. The warning signals should  be given due importance and steps taken as suggested in this paper.

REFERENCES

•    Environmentally sound Options for E-Wastes management Published by : Envis Journal of Human Settlements, March 2004.
•    E-waste: Managing The Digital Dump Yard by Vishakha Munshi
•    Freeman M. H. 1989. Standard Handbook of Hazardous Waste Treatment and Disposal, McGraw-Hill Company, USA.