Delhi 'blesses' Haridwar with e-waste

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Environmentalists are concerned over Delhi sending electronic waste (e-waste) to other states for recycling.

Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) recycle its e-waste at plants it had set up in various places, including one in the holy town of Haridwar. This plant has an annual recycling capacity of 12,000 tonnes.

Environmentalists say that interstate transportation of e-waste is illegal and dangerous.

“While Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore have formal mechanism to tackle e-waste in their respective regions, Delhi doesn’t have any such recycler as of now,” said Ramapathi Kumar, Greenpeace toxic campaign manager, while pointing out why Delhi sends its e-waste to other states.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), however, claim that e-waste can be carried to other states for recycling purposes, but cannot be dumped in other states.

Delhi employs 25,000 workers at its scrap yards, which handle 10,000-20,000 tonnes of e-waste annually. 25 per cent of the e-waste generated here are computers.

The scrap yard workers are unaware of the toxic substances in e-waste and hence take scant protection against any harmful effects. Instances of workers suffering from tuberculosis, asthma and skin diseases are common.

The workers have to handle lead, cadmium, zinc, mercury and various other toxic elements, which have the potential to harm human health and environment.

The e-waste contains significant quantities of toxic metals and chemicals, which affect blood systems, kidneys, brain, spleen and also interfere with regulatory hormones, causes skin diseases including cancer, neurological and respiratory disorders, and birth defects.

Thickly populated Shastri Nagar and Seelampur in Trans-Yamuna area are among scrap dumping and processing grounds in Delhi.

Another area of concern regarding e-waste is the recycling process followed in India, which includes aggregation, segregation, dismantling and recycling. Ironically India lacks specific guidelines on e-waste.

“Disposing off of these electronic goods are hazardous and the government till date does not have proper guidelines in place to tackle e-waste and 94 per cent of the organisations in India do not have a policy with regard to disposal of IT products,” said Kumar from Greenpeace.

Ringing in global warming

The Indian mobile phone market adds about six million mobile phones every month. With 256.55 million phones, mobile penetration in the country is at 22.52 per cent. India expects to reach 500 million subscribers by 2010-end.

Currently, there are over 75 million mobile users in India and the number is expected to increase to 200 million by 2008-end. India has about 16 million computers, which are expected to grow to 75 million by 2010, with more than over two million old machines waiting to be disposed.

The energy and raw materials used to produce millions of new mobile phones contributes to CO2 emissions and global warming.

Companies such as Nokia, Lenovo and HCL have formulated free take back programs and have outsourced recycling facility for old systems.

Motorola and LG have also joined Nokia and other companies in selling phones without the various toxic chemicals such as lead, calcium, mercury and many more, which affects health and the environment.

Nokia is encouraging the recycling of unwanted devices through a series of campaigns and activities, providing information on how to go about recycling old devices, chargers and other mobile accessories.

The products can be dropped off at Nokia’s retail stores and Nokia Care Centres worldwide.

According to experts, using the best recycling technology, nothing is wasted. Between 65 per cent and 80 per cent of phones can be recycled.

Plastics that can’t be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process and other materials are ground into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads.

Besides global warming, e-waste, is the most threatening environmental problem in the world today. In India, the total e-waste generation is approximately 3.8 lakh tonnes annually. And in the world, it is more than 20 million tonnes per year.

According to the third draft guidelines for environmentally sound management of e-waste issued by the CPCB, the inventory is expected to exceed eight lakh tonnes by 2012.

Sixty-five cities in India generate more than 60 per cent of the total e-waste generated in the country. Ten states generate 70 per cent of the total e-waste generated in India.

Maharashtra ranks first followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab in the list of e-waste generating states in India.

Among the top ten cities generating e-waste, Mumbai ranks first followed by Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur.