In India, the amount of "e-waste" or e-waste has now become a major issue. The electronic waste disposal is an emerging global environmental and public health problem, because this kind of garbage has become the fastest growing part of the regular urban waste stream in the world. Electronic waste or waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is loosely discarded, leftover, obsolete, or damaged electrical or electronic equipment. In India, most discarded electronic products are stored in households because people do not know how to discard them. Therefore, the Electronic Waste Trade and Recycling Alliance provides employment opportunities for many people in India. In Delhi alone, approximately 25,000 workers, including children, participated in crude oil dismantling units, handling 10,000-20,000 tons of e-waste with bare hands each year. Improper dismantling and disposal of e-waste makes it dangerous to human health and our ecosystem. Therefore, the need to properly manage e-waste has been realized. There is a need to review public health risks and strategies to deal with this growing threat.
The Burden of E-Waste
In India, with the emergence of e-waste, solid waste management has become a complex task. The total amount of waste generated from discarded or damaged electronic and electrical equipment in 2005 was estimated to be 1,46,000 tons, and it is expected to exceed 80,00,000 tons by 2022. However, according to the Greenpeace report, in 2007, India generated 380,000 tons of e-waste. Only 3% of them entered the facilities of authorized e waste management in Mumbai.
One of the reasons for this is that India has also become a garbage dump for many developed countries. The Basel Action Network (BAN) pointed out in a report that 50-80% of the e-waste collected by the United States is exported to India, China, Pakistan, Taiwan and some African countries. India is one of the fastest-growing economies. The world and domestic demand for durable consumer goods has been soaring. From 1998 to 2022, the worldwide sales of household appliances, large and small, increased by 73.1%. Another report estimates that in India, companies and individual households eliminate about 2.38 million personal computers every year, and the rate of e-waste generation is accelerating, about 20% every year, which will affect environmental health indicators.
Health Impact
Electronic equipment contains many harmful metal contaminants, such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, and brominated flame retardants. The proportion of iron, copper, aluminum, gold and other metals in electronic waste exceeds 60%, plastics account for about 30%, and harmful pollutants only account for about 2.70%. Among many toxic heavy metals, lead is the most widely used in electronic equipment for various purposes, and environmental pollution causes various health hazards so it is needed to do electronic waste management. Lead enters biological systems through food, water, air, and soil. Children are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning-more susceptible than adults, because they absorb more lead from the environment, and their nervous system and blood are also affected. Studies have found that e-waste recycling activities have increased the blood lead levels of children living in China, which is one of the most popular destinations for e-waste. This is because the processes and techniques used in recycling activities are very primitive. A number of research reports claim that the levels of toxic heavy metals and organic pollutants in dust, soil, river sediments, surface water and groundwater samples from Guiyu, China have soared. In the same area, residents have a higher incidence of skin damage, headache, dizziness, nausea, chronic gastritis, and gastroduodenal ulcer. It was further found that the blood lead level of children was higher than the average level in China, and there was no significant difference between boys and girls.
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