Netherlands | The fate of large quantities of electronic waste is unknown, according to a Greenpeace report ‘Toxic Tech: Not in Our Backyard’. While some electronic waste may be accounted for by storage in attics or garages, much may be disposed of with mixed waste in landfills and incinerators or exported - often illegally - for dumping in Africa or for rudimentary recycling in Asia, where it has a high toll on health, safety and the environment.
According to the green action group, even in regions such as the EU that are subject to tighter regulation, there is no precise information on what happens to as much as 75% of e-waste generated. In the US, this figure could be as high as 80% or more, since the amount of e-waste which is reported for recovery includes some of the e-waste that is exported to developing countries.
In newly industrialised countries it is almost impossible to estimate the amount of e-waste escaping any form of treatment or management, although in India, it is estimated that around 99% of domestic and imported e-waste, 143,000 tonnes per year, ends up in the informal recycling sector or is simply dumped, says Amsterdam, the Netherlands headquartered Greenpeace.
‘It is the scrap yard workers in Asia who are bearing the toxic burden of e-waste. They are exposed to a cocktail of toxic chemicals when the products are broken apart, polluting the water, air and soil of not only the scrap yards but the surrounding neighbourhood,’ says Martin Hojsik, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner.
Figures provided by four PC manufacturers who have already developed take-back and recycling activities suggest that only around 10% of own-branded end-of-life products were recycled. The figures for mobile phones were even lower, with only 2-3% being recycled. This means that, even for those companies reporting their own-brands, the hidden flow of e-waste branded products currently amounts to an average of 91% of past sales.
Acknowledgement
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