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.

Toxic wastes created by scraped cars

As many as 1.5 million cars are being scrapped illegally in Britian every year. Just imagine the amount of pollutants, fluids being disposed each year.Well according to the European Union in 2003 they introduced a legislation requiring all cars put to death must be taken to an approved site cleaned of pollutants and the owner issued a certificate of destruction. However people are not following this method which means tons of toxic waste are dumped unnoticed.


So in the end we have another ecological disaster in our hands.

Toxic trash spread in Savar

Some 300 industries around a 20 sq km near the Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ) in Savar are dumping toxic chemicals. To see the image http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/05/20/d6052001044p.htm . Its horrendous.

These toxic chemicals are running in farming lands where vital crops are being destroyed also causing environmental imbalance. The reason for this is because of lack of sewage and draining facilities. Not only that there are no recycling plant built-in with the industries to treat these toxic wastes.

Deep disposal on nuclear waste

Uk is planning to dispose its nuclear waste deep underground. To know more go to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4949096.stm

China Clean up

China had to dump more chemicals to clean up the toxic river. The cadmium containing slick forced people to cut off tap water. The slick was then flushed into the North River, running to the Guangdong province north to south. The sludge was then enclosed by a dam, where chemicals were dumped to neutralize it.
The chemical benzene was tested to check if the concentration of it were within safety regulations. Luckily it was. Although do we really know for sure that whether it was safe. Only the fishes would be able to tell us.

China's Enviornmental disaster

The explosion at a chemical plant in China. Eventhough this is old news, i need to say it cause i think this explosion may lead to a great ecosystem imbalance. During the explosion the chemical, benzene leaked into the river Songhua polluting the river and eventually made it impossible to drink water from the river.

It not only affected China, the toxic chemicals also entered Russia. According to reports a chemical cadmium a potentially cancer-creating chemical also flowed to a tributary of Yangtze River.

So you can imagine when toxicating a river the lives of fishes and aquatic animals are in great risk. Pollution not only affects animals but it also affects us. Although the explosion is an accident we have to learn to be must more careful and cautious or else things could get worse...