|
|
|
|
Today India has emerged as
the largest dumping ground of e-waste for the developed world. Nearly
40,000 tons of used electronic equipments are dumped in India every
month, much of which, according to Greenpeace International, end up
contaminating the country's environment with toxic organic compounds
and metals. "Computers and electronic equipments which have completed
their life cycle and are obsolete in the West have started arriving in
India and the entire South Asian market in huge quantities," says Ravi
Agarwal director of Toxics Link, a not-for-profit environmental group.
These "cheap" machines are almost totally made out of phased-out parts
like Intel central processing units, memory chips, hard disk drives,
and others, extracted from cheap and obsolete personal computers and
electronic equipment that are no longer in use on the other side of
the Pacific and the Atlantic are being dumped in India.. |
Elctonic waste |
|
Imports of
obsolete electronic equipment that have been discarded for recycling
in the "developed world" have become a lucrative business in
developing countries like India. Government authorities paying no heed
to the influx of tons of toxic e-waste along with lax local laws. Thus
India is rapidly turning into a deadly dumping ground of toxic organic
compounds and poisonous metals. According to a report by Toxics
Link claims that the country generates about 150,000 tons of waste
electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) a year, including
computers, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines. This does not
include clandestine imports from the developed world shipped into the
country under the guise of scrap or second hand goods. |
Dumping ground
of e-waste. |
|
In the absence of
appropriate recycling facilities for e-wastes, much of it ends up in
local recycling yards. The recycling is highly dangerous in India,
with all the operation and the procedure is still very primitive. And
they are recycling just with their bare hand; they have no protection
at all. Environmental organizations say that Delhi's e-scrap
yards alone employ more than 20,000 laborers who handle 20,000 tons of
e-waste every year. Close to 100 percent of total e-waste processing
activity in the country takes place in unorganized recycling and
backyard scrap-trading outfits. |
|
|
Computers and
other hardware discarded as obsolete, is imported from rich countries,
because the recycling is much costlier in those countries. Some
traders export the waste to a poor, developing country in Africa,
China or India, and make money off that waste. International treaties
prohibit the export of obsolete computer hardware from developed to
developing countries. But there are loopholes.
In India, livelihood becomes a priority than
environment which is not a priority. Cathode ray tubes laden
with toxic components are rebuilt by Ash Recyclers instead of crushed.
Many are turned into television sets, sold far more cheaply than new
ones to rural customers who could not otherwise afford them. Some Ash
Recyclers started a foundation that provides rebuilt machines to area
schools. Computers may get obsolete quickly in Bangalore's I.T.
companies, but for most others there is solid demand for used or
repaired machines. So an electronic waste has now been carefully
stocked in an inventory of spare parts.
Children are effected most by the e-waste poison.
According to a survey 53 percent of children under 12 in India's
cities are lead-poisoned, meaning permanent brain damage. |
|
|
