ABSTRACT
Introduction The electronics industry is regarded as the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry and hence, electronic waste (e-waste) is also quickly becoming the fastest growing waste stream in the industrialized world. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), up to 50 million tonne of e-waste is globally generated each year (UNEP 2007). The recent MAIT-GTZ study notes that about 330,000 tonne of e-waste is generated annually in India and the generation of e-waste is expected to touch 470,000 tonne by 2011 (Chaturvedi et al. 2007). The study also reveals that only about 19,000 tonne of the e-waste is recycled, of which 95 per cent is recycled in the informal sector. Empa, the Swiss federal laboratories for materials testing and research, estimate that in Delhi at least 10,000 unskilled workers are employed in recycling and recovery operations (Sinha-Khetriwala et al. 2005). The complexity of e-wasteflowswithinIndiaandinadequaterecord-keepingbyindustrymakean accurateestimationofe-wastedifficult(Streiche-Porte et al. 2007). The Basel Action Network (BAN) estimates that 80 per cent of e-waste sent to be recycled is not recycled. It is shipped to other countries. BAN (2005) noted that used appliances, computer equipment and cell phones are being collected and sent to developing nations, under the guise of ‘building bridges over the digital divide’. The initiatives assume that the sent equipments, although used, are in working order and will assist people in these poor countries. However, this same report estimates that 75 per cent of the aforesaid equipments received are damaged or broken and are actually useless. Furthermore, imports are often falsely declared to be for charity, going instead to informal recyclers or becoming e-waste within two or three years (Basu 2008). UNEP notes that more than 90 per cent of the globally generated e-waste ‘ends up in Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar and Pakistan’ (UNEP 2007). Electronic wastes can cause widespread environmental damage due to the use of toxic materials in the manufacture of electronic goods (Mehra 2004). E-waste contains more than 1,000 different substances and chemicals, including many toxic ones (Puckett and Smith 2002). These include lead, polychlorinated biphenyls, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, zinc, chromium, and selenium (CIWMB 2002).
