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Home >  Environment>>  Electronic Waste Adds to Pollution in India           

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

  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..

      e-waste
     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.

    elctronic waste
    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.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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