The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : A TIDE OF E-WASTE

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Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

A TIDE OF E-WASTE

COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONIC gadgets that have reached the end of their useful life in the industrialised countries present a major environmental problem for India and other developing countries, turning up at their ports as e-waste. This category of scrap containing highly toxic elements such as lead, cadmium, and mercury casts a disproportionately heavy burden on the developing countries into which they are illegally imported by unscrupulous agencies to salvage commercially valuable inputs. As use of computers and electronics grows, there is a marked preference among the less ethical companies in industrialised countries for transferring the burden of handling e-waste to other countries rather than adding the cost of managing it to their overall operations. Such harmful activity is being pursued with the help of facilitating agents in violation of the Basel Convention of the United Nations Environment Programme, which bans movement of hazardous waste. Confirmation of illegal and environmentally harmful export of e-waste to Asian countries now comes from a report released recently by the British Environment Agency. It has been revealed that discarded computers, television sets, refrigerators, mobile phones, and electrical equipment have been despatched to India, China, and Pakistan in large numbers for ultimate disposal in environmentally unacceptable ways and at great risk to the health of labour.

E-waste has reached critical proportions in the West, leading to stronger laws. International studies forecast a steady growth in the number of personal computers that will enter the market in the coming years to touch a billion by 2008; in India there will be an estimated 80 million new PC users. While there can be no question of slowing down the rate at which computer use is growing, there are lessons to be learnt from the developed world on instituting mechanisms to handle e-waste. The Environment Protection Agency of the United States (which has controversially avoided endorsement of the Basel Convention) acknowledges that electronic junk now forms a significant part of municipal wastes. Stronger regulation including pressure on industry to set up disassembling facilities and a ban on disposal in landfill sites have followed. Policy incentives for eco-friendly design and legislation laying down recycling requirements for computers and related equipment are parallel paths being pursued. The European Union has, for its part, tightened its laws through the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive that will be effective from 2005. This will curb most e-waste dumping by member countries and require manufacturers to create mechanisms to recover and recycle the equipment.

India is alive to the problem, its concern reflected in the publication a few weeks ago of a technical guide on environmental management for the IT industry. Its policy approaches, however, appear to be antiquated. No marks have been won by the country on its commitment to the Basel Convention, because it has failed to ratify the ban on movement of hazardous waste. The Central Government's response last year to smuggling of e-waste into the country was extremely feeble. It preferred to leave the issue to the Central Pollution Control Board with a mandate to prescribe guidelines for safe processing. The general lack of environmental safeguards was exposed by the BBC a couple of years ago through an undercover investigation that proved the existence of a thriving e-waste disposal hub in a suburb of New Delhi, operating in appallingly dangerous conditions. The recent revelations by the British Environment Agency do not indicate a marked change in the Indian situation. India urgently needs regulations to define e-waste, measures to stop illegal imports, and institutional structures to handle safe disposal of domestic scrap.

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