Environmental friendly recycling of electronic waste – A challenge before developing nations

Abstract

Electronic gadgets make life better and comfortable, however, become obsolete within no time due to arrival of the new one with added features and find their way to scrap dealers as electronic waste (e-waste). In developing nations both demand and supply of electronic items is rising day by day and so also the generation of e-waste and become the fastest growing portion of the waste stream. The dumping of e-waste by developed countries has further aggravated the problems associated with waste management. About 80% of the e-waste received by e-waste recycling industry in Europe and USA was exported into Asia. The most of the wastes are channelize towards the backyard recyclers where they employ women and children for manual and rudimentary process of recovery of metal values. They are unaware about the environmental and health impacts of hazardous e-waste recycling. Developed countries are more accustomed and adopt systematic collection and recycling process. Various processes developed/implemented by both developed as well as developing countries for effective management were discussed. Various ill effects caused due to unscientific recycling of e-waste are also discussed in this paper.