E-WASTE

A GREEN ISSUES DISCUSSION DOCUMENTATION

Submitted byAli Asgar Saeed Anvesh Jobalia Bhumi Shah Carol Tauro Harsheel Vyas Mihir Amritwar N. Rajesh Namrata Kakade Utsav Joshi

E-WASTE

Introduction: "Electronic waste" may be defined as discarded computers, office electronic equipment, entertainment device electronics, mobile phones, television sets and refrigerators. This definition includes used electronics which are destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling, or disposal. Others define the re-usables (working and repairable electronics) and secondary scrap (copper, steel, plastic, etc.) to be "commodities", and reserve the term "waste" for residue or material which is dumped by the buyer rather than recycled, including residue from reuse and recycling operations. There is a lack of consensus as to whether the term should apply to resale, reuse, and refurbishing industries, or only to product that cannot be used for its intended purpose. Informal processing of electronic waste in developing countries may cause serious health and pollution problems, though these countries are also most likely to reuse and repair electronics. All electronic scrap components, such as CRTs, may contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants. Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of material such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes. Scrap industry and USA EPA officials agree that materials should be managed with caution.

Arguments in favour of E-waste: Now-a-days, electronic equipments are a necessity. We live in a world surrounded by electronic equipments. All the aspects of our life are covered in the utilization of electronics. Be it a mobile phone or a laptop, a refrigerator or a microwave, a television set or a music system, we cannot avoid using electronics in our everyday life; and hence cannot avoid the Ewaste generated from disposal of those electronics as well. The disadvantages of E-waste are known by one and all. But since electronic equipments are important, E-waste is inevitable. Some of the positive contributions of electronic equipments in the world are as follows: Electrical equipments are an outcome of advancement in technology. Technology contributes to a countrys overall economic growth and development. Technology leads to industrialization. Technology and using electrical equipments generates educated employment. Using electrical equipments increases work efficiency and speed.

These advantages of using electrical equipments overshadow the disadvantages of E-waste. Also, electrical equipments are a substitution of paper and hence generation of E-waste leads to less generation of paper waste. Keeping in mind the advantages and need of electrical equipments in our life, the only issue in hand is the disposal of E-waste. There are primarily four techniques of disposal of E-waste. However, there are many environmental and health risks arising from these disposal techniques. The four techniques and their disadvantages are discussed as under: Landfilling: It is one of the most widely used methods for disposal of e-waste. In landfilling, trenches are made on the flat surfaces. Soil is excavated from the trenches and waste material is buried in it, which is covered by a thick layer of soil. The environmental risks from landfilling of e-waste cannot be neglected because the conditions in a landfill site are different from a native soil, particularly concerning the leaching behavior of toxic metals like mercury, cadmium and lead.

Incineration: It is a controlled and complete combustion process, in which the waste material is burned in specially designed incinerators at a high temperature (9001000oC). Advantage of incineration of e-waste is the reduction of waste volume and the Utilization of the energy content of combustible materials. Some plants remove iron from the slag for recycling. By incineration some environmentally hazardous organic substances are converted into less hazardous compounds. Disadvantage of incineration are the emission to air of substances escaping flue gas cleaning and the large amount of residues from gas cleaning and combustion. E-waste incineration plants contribute significantly to the annual emissions of cadmium and mercury. In addition, heavy metals not emitted into the atmosphere are transferred to slag and exhaust gas residues and can re-enter the environment on disposal. Therefore, e-waste incineration will increase these emissions, if no reduction measures like removal of heavy metals are taken.

Recycling of E-waste: Recycling involves dismantling i.e. removal of different parts of e-waste containing dangerous substances like PCB, Hg, separation of plastic, removal of CRT, segregation of ferrous and non-ferrous metals and printed circuit boards. Recyclers use strong acids to remove precious metals such as copper, lead, gold. The value of recycling from the element could be much higher if appropriate technologies are used. The recyclers working in poorlyventilated enclosed areas without mask and technical expertise are exposed to dangerous and slow poisoning chemicals. The existing dumping grounds in India are full and overflowing beyond capacity and it is difficult to get new dumping sites due to scarcity of land. Therefore recycling is the best possible option for the management of e-waste.

Re-use: It constitutes direct second hand use or use after slight modifications to the original functioning equipment. It is commonly used for electronic equipments like computers, cell phones etc. Inkjet cartridge is also used after refilling. This method also reduces the volume of e-waste generation. We can use above mentioned methods for treatment and disposal of e-waste. The better option is to avoid its generation. To achieve this, buy back of old electronic equipments shall be made mandatory. Large companies should purchase the used equipments back from the customers and ensure proper treatment and disposal of e-waste by authorized processes. This can considerably reduce the volume of e-waste generation.

Looking into the side-effects of E-waste disposal, we can infer that re-use is the only best solution for E-waste management right now. This technique is being used by companies like Dell and Nokia as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. They buy back the products and upgrade them and re-sell again. Hence we can say that there are only two options of setting ourselves free from the ill-effects of E-waste: either curb it or find a solution to manage it.

Arguments against E-waste: Following are the harmful effects of generation of E-waste: 1. Damage to human organs: Lead erodes bones and affects the kidney, liver etc. 2. Decrease in agricultural income: Electronics and technology does generate employment but when the products are disposed, the soil gets polluted and infertile and agriculture gets affected. With India being a country highly dependent on agricultural income, E-waste is hazardous. 3. E-waste is 3 times more than other wastes in the world. So the proportion of E-waste reducing paper waste is much less than the overall generation of E-waste. 4. Electronics lead to growth. But E-waste leads to health damage, kidney failures, cancer, etc. 5. When E-waste is dumped in river, the entire ecosystem gets polluted. 6. The solution to E-waste disposal is that we reuse the electronics by upgrading them. But that leads to meagre quality of the product.

Solutions for E-waste Management: 1. Magnetic segregation, Trommel used in European countries: the biggest problem of E-waste disposal is that all electronics are a mixture of complex and different metals and materials. Hence, when they are recycled, it is very difficult to segregate the materials which lead to emission of harmful substances. One technique to tackle this is magnetic segregation. 2. The re-use and recycle guidelines should be provided to companies that are involved in production of goods 3. Companies should work with WEEE: WEEE is an organisation working on finding out ways to reduce E-waste. 4. Provide a taskforce to find innovative solutions. 5. Use substitutes materials for the electronics that can be easily recycled. For e.g. Laptops should be made of biodegradable plastics. 6. Companies should have E-auditors to manage and reduce E-waste annually. E-audit should be done annually to keep a check on how much E-waste a company is generating. 7. We should have a regulatory body which spreads awareness of re-cycling of E-waste and other E-waste management methods. 8. Companies should come up with green technology. E.g. Organic LED or the use of zinc batteries like Duracel rather than lead batteries. 9. Organization supporting social work: the recycled or upgraded products can be used for charity and donations. 10. Companies should have a dedicated separate department solely to keep a check on Ewaste management. 11. Use of Nanotechnology, organic technology and printed technology should be encouraged as it is both economical and less polluting.