Tuesday, February 27, 2007

India's Hi-tech waste mirrors its booming economy

India's big leap in economy has caused a greater increase in hi-tech waste. What is hi-tech waste? Toxic electronic waste like computers, televisions, and many more are hi-tech waste and it is claimed by an environmental group that such wastes are been thrown without check and the reason would be that there are no laws present to regulate these wastes.

Toxic Link said while the Asian giant's economy has been growing 8 percent annually over the last three years has also resulted in the production of 150,000 tonnes of electronic waste each year.

After an eight month study by the group shows that India's great source of e-waste is the busy financial hub Mumbai producing 19,000 tonnes every year.

Director of Toxic Link said that since there are no laws for its safe management that this could create serious health and environmental impacts.

In the early 1990s India's liberal economic provided people to create more banks, financial institutions, electronics industries, information technology firms and call centres setting up operations across the country.

This surge in economy has also led middle class people estimated 300 million people an increase in spending as more people get better salary. More spending would lead to a craving for electronic products which will eventually create a massive increase in electronic disposal.

Most people buy electronics such as mobile phones, use it for 2-3 months chuck the old one and buy another one. India is not the only one, China is not far behind. I found a site e-waste Guide which deals with e-waste and how to recycle it. They have done case studies in various countries such as India, China, South Africa.

So if e-waste increases however there are disadvantages to it such as it has one of largest Let me now talk why electronic waste is toxic. Chemicals such as lead and cadmium in circuit boards lead oxide and cadmium in monitor cathode ray tubes (CRT); mercury in switches and flat screen monitors; cadmium in computer batteries; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in older capacitors and transformers and brominated flame retardants on printed circuit boards, plastic casings, cables and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cable insulation that release highly poisonous gases when heated.


In order to contain these wastes expensive recycle plants or machines are required to keep these wastes under control. Although currently in India the present recyclers do not have such expensive technology to handle such waste. Alternate methods such as product reuse, conventional disposal in landfills and incinerators. However we know that when such products burn they produce extremely poisonous gases which a small percentage could kill people.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One really great thing they could do (at least I think) is to ship their used electronics to the UK or the USA. We (in the USA) have a good amount of recycling plants that specialize in electronics waste. It would be a great benefit for their local environment and a boost to our economy from the work increase.
Besides, we should be getting something back from India for all of the jobs that we have outsourced to them over the years.

Unknown said...

Well,paulguise, I would like you to know that nearly 50,000 tonnes of e-waste is getting into India clandestinely and Illegally and most of it from America. It is imported to India under false declarations like Cottton waste, Newspaper waste, etc. In India the informal sector which recycles about 95% of the e-waste using crude and environmentally damaging methods sustains the poorest of the poor families.Child labour is used extensively damaging their health and depriving their childhood.Developed countries should take care of their waste themselves and not ship it overseas.
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