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UN experts  report released  by UNEP.   Many developing countries including India face the spectre of hazardous e-waste mountains with serious consequences for the environment and public health, according to UN experts in a landmark report released on February 22, 2010  by UNEP. Issued at a meeting of Basel Convention and other world chemical authorities prior to UNEP's Governing Council meeting in Bali, Indonesia, the report,    "Recycling – from E-Waste to Resources," used data from 11 representative developing countries to estimate current and future e-waste generation – which includes old and dilapidated desk and laptop computers, printers, mobile phones, pagers, digital photo and music devices, refrigerators, toys and televisions. Global e-waste generation is growing by about 40 million tons a year.   The UN research predicts that in South Africa and China, e-waste from old computers may jump by 200 to 400 per cent from 2007 levels and by 500 per cent in India. E-waste from mobile phones in the same period is forecast to rise   seven times in China, and 18 times in India.     e-Waste in India   Currently, an estimated 380,000 tonnes of e-waste is generated annually in India, of  which 19,000 tonnes are recycled,” said MAIT Executive Director Vinnie Mehta. India faces a mounting challenge to dispose of an estimated 420,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year that it generates domestically and imports from abroad, a green lobby group said on October 28, 2009. Pollution control officials, who declined to give figures for the quantity of e-waste, said India had only six regular recycling units with an annual capacity of 27,000 tonnes.   "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..    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.

e-Waste recycling facilities   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.   E-Waste rules     The Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) has incubated an Electronics Recyclers’ Association (ERA) to organise electronic waste (e-waste) handling in an environment- friendly manner. ERA will initially comprise nine members, of which six are e-waste processors and three executive members. “Besides the amount that is generated in the country, e-waste is also illegally imported and there are only 10 formal recyclers who are collectors as well as dismantlers of this e-waste,” said ERA Secretary-General Lakshmi Raghupathy.    The formation of ERA is significant given that last month the government had prepared the draft rules for managing, dismantling or recycling e-waste and will be called the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2010.     The rules ask the producer to ensure all electrical and electronic equipment are provided with a unique serial number or individual identification code for tracking their products in the e-waste management system. These rules define e-waste as waste electrical and electronic equipment, scraps or rejects from their manufacturing process, which is intended to be discarded.

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