{"id":6005,"date":"2020-01-30T18:03:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T12:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=6005"},"modified":"2020-01-30T18:03:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T12:33:23","slug":"electronic-waste-and-disposal-procedure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/electronic-waste-and-disposal-procedure\/","title":{"rendered":"Electronic Waste and disposal procedure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Governance: E-Waste Management<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/E-wastes.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6007\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/E-wastes.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"964\" height=\"918\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Electronic industry is one of the world\u2019s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industries. It has provided some leverage to the socio-economic and technological growth of the developing society of India.<br \/>\n\u2022 However, it creates new environmental challenges- \u201cElectronics Waste\u201d or \u201ce-waste\u201d that consists of obsolete electronics devices.<br \/>\n\u2022 Solid waste management, which is already a critical task in India, is becoming more complicated by the invasion of e-waste, particularly computer waste.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In general, electronic goods\/gadgets can are classified under three major heads:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>White goods: Household appliances,<br \/>\n\u2022 Brown goods: TVs, camcorders, cameras etc.,<br \/>\n\u2022 Grey goods: Computers, printers, fax machines, scanners etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/E-waste.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6006\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/E-waste.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"362\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>e-Waste: Posing Challenges:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Personal Computers (PCs) contain certain components, which are highly toxic, posing environmental and health challenges. This fast growing waste stream has been accelerating because the global market for PCs is far from saturation and the average life span of a PC is decreasing rapidly.<br \/>\n\u2022 Rapid economic growth, coupled with urbanisation and a growing demand for consumer goods, has increased both the production and consumption of electronics and electrical equipments.<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s recycling sector is still underdeveloped. Most people are unaware of potential negative impact.<br \/>\n\u2022 When these products are dumped in landfills or incinerated, they pose health risks because of the<br \/>\nhazardous materials they contain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Statistics:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Global E-waste Monitor, 2017 published by the United Nations University estimated that India generates about 20 lakh ton of e-waste annually, nearly 82% of which is personal devices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Effects on Air, Water, and Soil:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When electronic items containing heavy metals are improperly disposed, these heavy metals leach through the soil to reach groundwater channels which eventually run to the surface as streams or small ponds of water.<br \/>\n\u2022 Burning of e-waste in open landfill for obtaining gold and other precious metals produces fine particulate matter and causes cardio-vascular and pulmonary ailments in children.<br \/>\n\u2022 Drinking water contaminated with lead affects the central and nervous system and causes poor brain growth, dwarfism, hearing disability, and impaired formation and function of blood cells.<br \/>\n\u2022 Since, these chemicals are not biodegradable; they persist in the environment for long time,<br \/>\nincreasing the risk of exposure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Some solutions addressing the issue:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The product designers must ensure the longevity of the products through their re-use, repair, and\/or<br \/>\nupgradability features.<br \/>\n\u2022 Recycling and reuse of materials are next options to reduce generation of e-waste.<br \/>\n\u2022 Recovery of metals, plastic, glass, and other materials reduce the magnitude of e-waste.<br \/>\n\u2022 Clear regulatory instruments adequate to control both exports and imports of e-waste and ensuring<br \/>\ntheir environmentally sound management should be in place.<br \/>\n\u2022 Manufactures of products must be made financially, physically, and legally responsible for their<br \/>\nproducts.<br \/>\n\u2022 All vendors of electronic devices shall provide take-back and management services for their<br \/>\nproducts at the end of life of those products.<br \/>\n\u2022 Collection systems are to be established so that e-waste is collected from the right places ensuring<br \/>\nthat this directly comes to recycling unit.<br \/>\n\u2022 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) authorisation has been provided to 726 producers by the CPCB. It specifies the collection targets for the specified time (five years); but unfortunately, no independent mechanism has been put in place to check or verify the claims made in authorisations resulting in slack implementation.<br \/>\n\u2022 Recently, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has developed a guideline on uniform inventorisation of e-waste in the country.<br \/>\n\u2022 As per information available with CPCB, 69,414 MT of e-waste was collected, dismantled, and recycled during 2017-18.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenges Ahead:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Only 1.5 per-cent of e-waste generated in India gets recycled. Lack of awareness about e-waste and its recycling as well as the role of the unorganised sector are the added challenges to the problem.<br \/>\n\u2022 The base metals which can be reused are lost and result in soil contamination due to unorganised<br \/>\nand crude dismantling.<br \/>\n\u2022 A consumer of an electric or electronic device is not apprised of the end of value chain of the product.<br \/>\nOften, information is not provided along with the product packing about the e-collection centre for the product sold.<br \/>\n\u2022 The responsibility of the consumers is also not specified along with the product.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Technical and policy-level interventions, proper implementation, capacity building, and increasing the public awareness are the need of the time.<br \/>\n\u2022 They only can convert this challenge into an opportunity and set global credible standards concerning<br \/>\nenvironmental and occupational health.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Governance: E-Waste Management Introduction: Electronic industry is one of the world\u2019s largest and fastest growing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-6005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6008,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6005\/revisions\/6008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}