E-waste refers to electronic products and equipments meant for telecommunications, data processing and entertainment. This term also denotes numerous discarded products. E waste is known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipments (WEEE). The logic behind WEEE is almost all the electronic appliances and products use electronic circuits so that’s why they are termed as WEEE. We are living in a world where digital items are flooding our households. Products are rapidly being digitalized, which on one hand, is making our life much simpler but then it is also creating a different kind of problem.
The problem of e waste disposal needs to be addressed seriously and with utmost sincerity. The need for e waste disposal arises from the fact that, old and useless electronic items are not bio-degradable. In most of the developing countries, these e waste materials are collected through scrap dealers. From them, they end up in the unorganized recycling places.
Disposal methods used are dependent on shaky practices, which are extremely unsafe to say the least. Most of these non-bio degradable items contain heavy metals like, carbon-zinc, silver oxide, lithium batteries, nickel-cadmium, zinc batteries and nickel-metal hydride etc.
Equipments like computers, cameras, power tools, watches, calculators, hearing aids, pacemakers etc heavily use toxic materials. The most common practices adopted for disposal e waste are acid baths, land filling and open air burning. When electronic equipments are burned, they release abundant fumes which are dangerous for environment way beyond our imagination and estimation.
Land filling also is not a safe method at all. Chemicals present in e waste like, mercury, lead, cadmium or plastics are dumped on the ground. These chemicals pose a severe threat to soil and underground water. Most of these chemical leach into underground water which is extremely hazardous. Landfills are generally not even organized. E waste contents are often dumped in open ground without taking any substantial safety measure. The repercussions can be well estimated. A lot needs to be done to make
disposal of e waste a safe process.
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