E-Waste: The greener way

BANGALORE, INDIA: Asia, especially India, owing to its cheap labour and mediocrity of law, has been on the receiving end of this issue for long. Today it has become a dumping ground for the developed nations. “Eighty percent of e-waste generated in the US lands up in China, India and Taiwan and about 65-70 percent of e-waste from Europe rests in peace in Asian soils,” the sources note.

“India lacks both at the level of awareness as well as infrastructure. Environmental awareness and willingness is very limited in this country,” sources from Toxics Link aver.

Having generated around 4,56,000 tonnes in 2008 (as per MAIT-GTZ E-Waste Survey 2007), India today has become an abode for this mounting scrap of waste, called e-waste. It is high time to dig deep into this disorder and try to clean the dirt!

Green has become the word today. Anything under the sun calls for a greener solution and it is high time that corporates accept the word as the way out.

Way Forward

E-waste is not a problem that cropped up suddenly. It was being bulid up slowly and the governmrent was aware of it. Ever so India doesn't have a proper system to curb this issue. The lack of infrastructure and legislation brings up several questions.

What is stopping the Indian Government from drawing a line against these illegal imports?

With the best technology to boast of, isn't India capable of building a proper recycling plant all even after all these years?

How can the corporates display such blatant double standards in terms of West and East, thus putting thousands of lives at stake?

Lots to be done if we want to curb it and it is not going to be easy. On the other hand the government has to deal with the issue very sensitively because it is about a mere handful of people involved, it is addressing a whole lot of 5 million people at the least. They have to be given proper education and awareness regarding the do's and don'ts od e-wastes and corporates and other social bodies have to be involved too.

The value of recovery from the elements would be much higher if appropriate technology is used. If taken up in the proper manner this could be developed as a cottage industry so that the people who are already involved in it are not thrown to the streets. A collective responsibility has to be developed. Otherwise we will have to be the witness of another human caused terror like global warming or global recession, which could have been averted with timely intervention.

Otherwise we can start counting ourselves on the world map, not for being the best outsourcing nation or for having the largest IT infrastructure or even for the great maestros that India had given birth to, but for the tag most we will give all the other countries in a race of most toxic cities.

Let's together us put forth a request to the West to stop 'donating' and wash their dirty linens on their own. The clock is ticking on and fresh wastes are being dumped, slowly seeping into the air, water and soil and soon into our lives.

A passing line: Instead of watching who is smooching whom, can't these 'netas', start worrying about such issues that need to be taken care of at war footage.