The Hindu 27.07.2009

Disposal of e-waste a staggering problem city PULSE

Ajai Sreevatsan and Sruthi Krishnan

— PHOTO: K.PICHUMANI

MAJOR PROBLEM: Is the city equipped to safely dispose of the huge amount of e-waste it generates?

CHENNAI: Constant chatter on the mobile phone and checking e-mails 24/7 — the communication revolution is here to stay. But a cell phone in every hand and a computer in every home also mean that along with kitchen waste, you will eventually see broken phones and dead monitors in the trash bin. E-waste, or electronic waste, comprises electronic items such as cell phones, computers, laptops, and batteries which have reached their end of life.

The statistics of e-waste indicate a staggering problem. Tamil Nadu produced 21,810 tonnes of e-waste in 2009, according to a study by Toxics Link, a non-governmental organisation. The projected growth is 34,746 tonnes in five years. Chennai ranks third among cities in e-waste generation in India.

To tackle this issue, during the budget session of the Assembly which concluded recently, IT Minister Poongothai Aladi Aruna announced that the Tamil Nadu Government would come up with a comprehensive e-waste policy in the current financial year. Tamil Nadu would be the first State in India to come up with such a policy.

E-waste recyling involves a four-step process: collection, dismantling, pre-treatment and treatment, explained an official from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. Chennai has 12 registered recyclers and five of them are currently operational. They include Thrishyiraya Recycling India, INAA Enterprises, AER World Wide (India), TES-AMM Recyclers India and Ultrust Solution. All five companies perform only the first two steps, as of now, as it is not viable to set up the infrastructure for the whole process.

Extended Producer Responsibility

The issue is not so much about having the right centres for recycling, as it is about getting the e-waste to these places. One approach to solving this is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which means that the producer of electronic goods will take responsibility for disposing of it, when the product reaches its end of life. For instance, a cell phone manufacturer would either own and operate a recycling facility or contract it out to a registered recycler. Hence, the responsibility for environmentally safe disposal of phones produced by this manufacturer would rest with the firm itself.

“EPR is an absolute must to enforce responsibility and also to make sure e-waste is sold only to registered audited recyclers,” says Ram Ramachandran, Director, TES-AMM India, a registered recycler.

Informal disposal

As such a system is not in place currently, the informal sector ends up playing a considerable role in disposal of e-waste, which has its own set of issues as it is difficult to regulate this sector. “The informal sector does not have to conform to any environmental norms,” says Mr. Ramachandran.

Registered recyclers cannot compete with the informal sector because recyclers make their profits by scaling up. Only if recyclers can obtain e-waste from a large number of individual customers, it would give enough valuable metals to make the business viable, says Mr. Ramachandran. “That means it is impossible to cater for ordinary consumers.”

A long-term solution would involve regularising the unauthorised sector and engage them in collection, says the official from TNPCB. It will also lead to individual consumers having access to recycling facilities, he adds.

Health issues

Burning printed circuit boards and other electronic equipment to get precious metal is not only harmful to the environment, but also affects the health of the people doing it. “What you have to worry most about is lead,” says R. Sridharan from the Asthma Allergy Research Centre.

Batteries and the soldering of mobile phones and electronic items contain lead, he says. A high level of lead in the blood caused health issues, including anaemia, suppression of the function of the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal problems. Prolonged exposure could cause renal and brain damage. Nickel and cadmium, used in rechargeable batteries, and mercury cause allergies, says Dr. Sridharan.

RoHS

There could be regulations to ensure that hazardous substances are not used in electronic items, says Abhishek Pratap, Greenpeace Toxics campaigner. This is referred to internationally as ‘RoHS’, or reduction of hazardous substances, which aims at reducing and eventually eliminating the use of hazardous substances at the design state itself, he says. International manufacturers do not have an incentive to reduce hazardous waste because e-waste gets exported to countries such as India, he says. “It costs about $20 to recycle a PC in the U.S., while it costs $2 in India because there are no norms or safeguards for the unorganised sector,” he says. “For the U.S. companies, it is cost-effective to ship their waste to Third World countries. It is simple economics.” Imports constitutes about 15% of the e-waste generated in India and most of it comes in under the guise of charity and reuse, he adds, quoting from a recent study