E-waste ..

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Electronic waste, e-waste, e-scrap, or Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE) describes loosely discarded,
surplus, obsolete, or broken electrical or electronic devices.
Environmental groups claim that the informal processing of
electronic waste in developing countries causes serious health
and pollution problems. Some electronic scrap components, such
as CRTs, contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium,
mercury, and brominated flame retardants. Activists claim that
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, but
that environmental dangers of unused electronics have been
exaggerated by roups which benefit from increased regulation.
Definitions

"Electronic waste" may be defined as all secondary computers,

entertainment device electronics, mobile phones, and other items
such as television sets and refrigerators, whether sold, donated,
or discarded by their original owners. 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 was represented as working or
repairable but which is dumped or disposed or discarded by the
buyer rather than recycled, including residue from reuse and
recycling operations. Because loads of surplus electronics are
frequently commingled (good, recyclable, and non-recyclable),
several public policy advocates apply the term "e-waste" broadly
to all surplus electronics. The United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) includes discarded CRT monitors in its
category of "hazardous household waste". but considers CRTs set
aside for testing to be commodities if they are not discarded,
speculatively accumulated, or left unprotected from weather and
other damage.

Debate continues over the distinction between "commodity" and

"waste" electronics definitions. Some exporters may deliberately
leave difficult-to-spot obsolete or non-working equipment mixed
in loads of working equipment (through ignorance, or to avoid
more costly treatment processes). Protectionists may broaden the
definition of "waste" electronics. The high value of the computer
recycling subset of electronic waste (working and reusable
laptops, computers, and components like RAM) can help pay the
cost of transportation for a large number of worthless "electronic
commodities".

Problems

Rapid change in technology, low initial cost, and planned

obsolescence have resulted in a fast-growing surplus of electronic
waste around the globe. Dave Kruch, CEO of Cash For Laptops,
regards electronic waste as a "rapidly expanding" issue. Technical
solutions are available, but in most cases a legal framework, a
collection system, logistics, and other services need to be
implemented before a technical solution can be applied. An
estimated 50 million tons of E-waste is produced each year. The
USA discards 30 million computers each year and 100 million
phones are disposed of in Europe each year. The Environmental
Protection Agency estimates that only 15-20% of e-waste is
recycled, the rest of these electronics go directly into landfills and
incinerators. In the United States, an estimated 70% of heavy
metals in landfills comes from discarded electronics.

Mumbai generating 19,000 tones of e-waste annually:

In a grim reminder of the increasing environmental and health

hazards in India's urban centres, a new study by Toxics Link, an
environmental group, has revealed that Mumbai is not just the
leading generator of electronic waste in the country, but also that
the rate at which the commercial capital is throwing away
electronic goods is far higher than believed so far.

India generates about 150,000 tons of WEEE annually and almost

all of it finds its way into the informal sector, as there is no
organised alternative available at present. The trend is likely to
increase manifold in proportion to the growth in the consumption
of electronic products.

Key findings:
1. Mumbai generates roughly 19,000 tonnes of WEEE annually,
which is substantially higher than the existing
approximation. This figure includes not just computers, but
also televisions, refrigerators and washing machines. The
 actual WEEE quantity is expected to be much higher, as
several other electronic products, which have not been used
in the study, are being dumped into the city's waste stream,
and also because there are no figures available on imports
from developed nations.

2. A substantial part of Mumbai's WEEE, both imported and

locally generated, is sent to recycling markets located in
other parts of the country. The National Capital Region of
Delhi is a preferred recycling destination for printed circuit
boards (PCBs) originating from the city.

3. Being the hub of India's commercial and financial activities,

the banks and financial institutions in Mumbai generate huge
amounts of WEEE, but they do not have any method for its
safe handling contributing to disastrous health and
environmental impacts of WEEE. The issue of security of
data on discarded computers is adequately addressed when
such waste is auctioned to waste dealers as scrap.

4. Mumbai has a large network of scrap traders. The hotspots

that handle WEEE in and around Mumbai are - Kurla, Saki
Naka, Kamthipura-Grant Road, Jogeshwari and Malad.
Recycling in these shops and rooftops not only exposes
those involved in the activity to serious health hazards, but
also pollutes the surrounding environment. The rate of WEEE
generation and the current methods of disposal in Mumbai
pose grave environmental and health risks to the city at
large due to its dense population and spatial character.

5. The current handling practices suffer from use of crude

methods for dismantling and storage, minimal capital input
and zero health and environmental safeguards.

6. Lack of a legislative framework to address the issue of WEEE

management by taking on-board all stakeholders is
hampering solution implementation.
 7. Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) approach, which
broadly implies that producers be made responsible for their
product even after the consumer has bought and used it, is
emerging as popular alternative for e-waste management in
various countries of the world. India needs to take steps in
this direction.

Processing techniques

In developed countries, electronic waste processing usually first

involves dismantling the equipment into various parts (metal
frames, power supplies, circuit boards, plastics), often by hand.
The advantages of this process are the human's ability to
recognize and save working and repairable parts, including chips,
transistors, RAM, etc. The disadvantage is that the labor is often
cheapest in countries with the lowest health and safety standards.

In an alternative bulk system, a hopper conveys material for

shredding into a sophisticated mechanical separator, with
screening and granulating machines to separate constituent
metal and plastic fractions, which are sold to smelters or plastics
recyclers. Such recycling machinery is enclosed and employs a
dust collection system. Most of the emissions are caught by
scrubbers and screens. Magnets, eddy currents, and trommel
screens are employed to separate glass, plastic, and ferrous and
nonferrous metals, which can then be further separated at a
smelter. Leaded glass from CRTs is reused in car batteries,
ammunition, and lead wheel weights,[11] or sold to foundries as a
fluxing agent in processing raw lead ore. Copper, gold, palladium,
silver, and tin are valuable metals sold to smelters for recycling.
Hazardous smoke and gases are captured, contained, and treated
to mitigate environmental threat. These methods allow for safe
reclamation of all valuable computer construction materials.[7]
Hewlett-Packard product recycling solutions manager Renee St.
Denis describes its process as: "We move them through giant
shredders about 30 feet tall and it shreds everything into pieces
about the size of a quarter. Once your disk drive is shredded into
pieces about this big, it's hard to get the data off."[24]

An ideal electronic waste recycling plant combines dismantling for

component recovery with increased cost-effective processing of
bulk electronic waste.

Electronic waste substances

Some computer components can be reused in assembling new

computer products, while others are reduced to metals that can
be reused in applications as varied as construction, flatware, and
jewelry.

Substances found in large quantities include epoxy resins,

fiberglass, PCBs, PVC (polyvinyl chlorides), thermosetting plastics,
lead, tin, copper, silicon, beryllium, carbon, iron and aluminium.
Elements found in small amounts include cadmium, mercury, and
thallium.

Elements found in trace amounts include americium, antimony,

arsenic, barium, bismuth, boron, cobalt, europium, gallium,
germanium, gold, indium, lithium, manganese, nickel, niobium,
palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, selenium, silver,
tantalum, terbium, thorium, titanium, vanadium, and yttrium.

Almost all electronics contain lead and tin (as solder) and copper
(as wire and printed circuit board tracks), though the use of lead-
free solder is now spreading rapidly. The following are ordinary
applications:

Hazardous

• Americium: smoke alarms (radioactive source).

• Mercury: fluorescent tubes (numerous applications), tilt
switches (pinball games, mechanical doorbells, thermostats).
With new technologies arising, the elimination of mercury in
many new-model computers is taking place.[26]
• Sulphur : lead-acid batteries.
 • PCBs: prior to ban, almost all 1930s–1970s equipment,
including capacitors, transformers, wiring insulation, paints,
inks, and flexible sealants.
• Cadmium: light-sensitive resistors, corrosion-resistant alloys
for marine and aviation environments, nickel-cadmium
batteries.
• Lead: solder, CRT monitor glass, lead-acid batteries, some
formulations of PVC. A typical 15-inch cathode ray tube may
contain 1.5 pounds of lead, but other CRTs have been
estimated as having up to 8 pounds of lead.

• Beryllium oxide: filler in some thermal interface materials

such as thermal grease used on heat sinks for CPUs and
power transistors, magnetrons, X-ray-transparent ceramic
windows, heat transfer fins in vacuum tubes, and gas lasers.
• Polyvinyl chloride Third most widely produced plastic,
contains additional chemicals to change the chemical
consistency of the product. Some of these additional
chemicals called additives can leach out of vinyl products.
Plasticizers that must be added to make PVC flexible have
been additives of particular concern

Generally non-hazardous

Recyclable Materials

• Tin: solder, coatings on component leads.

• Copper: copper wire, printed circuit board tracks, component
leads.
• Aluminum: nearly all electronic goods using more than a few
watts of power (heat sinks), electrolytic capacitors.
• Iron: steel chassis, cases, and fixings.
• Germanium: 1950s–1960s transistorized electronics (bipolar
junction transistors).
• Silicon: glass, transistors, ICs, printed circuit boards.
• Nickel: nickel-cadmium batteries.
 • Lithium: lithium-ion batteries.
• Zinc: plating for steel parts.
• Gold: connector plating, primarily in computer equipment.

According to our information The Central Pollution Control Board

(CPCB) Thursday said Mumbai topped the list of electronic waste
producing cities in the country. Delhi was placed second in the
list.

The board predicts the country's annual e-waste production to

increase to 800,000 tonnes by 2012.
"During 2005, 146,800 tonnes of e-waste was generated in the
country, which is expected to increase to 800,000 by 2012," said
a statement of the environment ministry.
The statement said the CPCB survey had found that "the top ten
cities generating e-waste are Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata,
Chennai, Ahmadabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur."
"There are 36,165 hazardous waste generating industries in the
country. 6.2 million Tonnes of hazardous waste is generated by
them every year, of which landfillable waste is 2.7 million tonnes,
incinerable 0.41 million tonnes and recyclable hazardous waste is
3.08 million tonnes," the ministry said.
As per the hazardous wastes (management, handling and trans-
boundary movement) rules, 2008, all units handling e-waste need
to register with the CPCB and the hazardous wastes generated
should be given to an authorised recycler or re-user.
Due to this waste truth has come front of us that Mumbai
choking on e-waste
The city faces grave health and environmental risks posed by a
whopping 19,000 tones of electronic waste produced here apart
from a good amount of the same being imported clandestinely,
a new report has revealed.

What is more alarming is that the rate at which the city is

discarding e-waste - old computers, television, refrigerators and
washing machines - is far higher than what was believed so far,
the study has shown.

The report hints that even this shocking figure is at best modest,
Satish Sinha, chief program coordinator of NGO Toxic Link.

"The rate of e-waste generation and the current methods of

disposal in Mumbai pose grave environmental and health risks to
the city at large due to its dense population and spatial
character."

Economic extremities and rampant urban poverty have made

processing of old and discarded electronic products a dangerous
and booming cottage industry for a substantial population of
recyclers, waste dealers and middlemen.

"But the fact that this poses a very serious threat to the
environment and human health cannot be emphasized enough."
India generates about 1.5 lakh tones of e-waste annually and
almost all of it finds its way into the informal sector as there is no
organised alternative available at present...The trend is likely to
increase manifold in proportion to growth in electronic goods
consumption, the report says.

Effects on ENVIRONMENT
• Pollution of Ground-Water.

• Acidification of soil.

• Air Pollution.

• E-Waste accounts for 40 percent of the lead and 75 percent

of the heavy
 metals found in landfills.

Effects On HUMAN HEALTH

• Damage to central and peripheral nervous systems, blood
systems and kidney damage.

• Affects brain development of children.

• Chronic damage to the brain.

• Respiratory and skin disorders due to bioaccumulation in

fishes.

• Asthmatic bronchitis.

• DNA damage.

• Reproductive and developmental problems.

• Immune system damage.

• Lung Cancer.

• Damage to heart, liver and spleen.