My
first recollection of waste recycling is that of disheveled kids
roaming the streets of Delhi. They have large plastic bags and
whenever they spot a discarded but “valuable” item—a plastic
bottle, a rusted iron rod or the like—they toss it into the bag and
move forward in search for more.
At
that time I was amused by what I saw (I knew they would sell their
stuff to the local kabadiwala,
the scrap dealer, for a paltry sum.)
Now,
several years later, amusement about a curious aspect of waste
collection has turned into a loathing for how the entire “waste
situation” looks. As I came to know about the trash piling up in
landfills, about chemicals from discarded objects leaching into soil
and water (often winding their way into the bloodstream of humans and
other animals, with toxic effects), and about the devastatingly
fast-growing proportion of e-waste in the overall junk, my disgust
only intensified.
An
estimated 40-50 million tons of all kinds of electronic waste (from
computers and phones to TVs and washing machines) is generated
globally each year. In India, it is around 1 million tons, but
growing faster than many developed countries.
What
is more appalling is that much of this e-waste—a whopping 85-90%—is
either dumped or handled hazardously. And while advanced economies
such as the U.S. regularly consume and discard the bulk of
electronics, the trash ends up in third-world countries of Asia and
Africa.
But
there is a glimmer of hope. A growing awareness and sense of
responsibility at government, corporate and individual levels is
driving home the need to deal with all that e-waste in an
environmentally friendly manner.
In
India a right step in that direction was taken in 2011 in the shape
of the e-Waste Management and Handling Act. A key part of this
regulation is the EPR (extended producer responsibility) clause,
which puts the onus of responsibly warehousing or disposing of the
e-waste on manufacturers.
Another
green development is that several watchdogs, recyclers and e-waste
services firms are cropping up in the country.
However,
all this is still a small start to a very large and complex problem.
For one, recycling should not be equated with passing on the
collected e-waste to the unorganized sector (which often employs
women and children to retrieve metals and components from the devices
through burning or manual dismantling).
In
addition, both the government and the corporate sectors should make
efforts to grow awareness about the regulation and product take-back
programs—and there should be a proper mechanism to monitor such
programs and provision for punitive measures, if necessary.
Managing
e-waste well is more than a matter of health for all those directly
affected by toxicity of the materials: it is a big question mark over
the survival of the whole planet.
