Management of Electronic Waste Disposal In India · laws on the methods of disposal of electronic...

ADVANCES in NATURAL and APPLIED SCIENCES

ISSN: 1995-0772 Published BYAENSI Publication EISSN: 1998-1090 http://www.aensiweb.com/ANAS

2017 June 11(8): pages 522-529 Open Access Journal

ToCite ThisArticle: R.P. Sivakumaran, Dr K.M. Anandkumar, G Shanmugasundaram., Management of Electronic Waste Disposal In India. Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences. 11(8); Pages: 522-529

Management of Electronic Waste Disposal In India

1R.P. Sivakumaran, 2Dr K.M. Anandkumar, 3G Shanmugasundaram

1P.G Scholar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Easwari Engineering College, Anna University, Chennai-600089, India.. 2Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Easwari Engineering College, Anna University, Chennai-600089, India. 3Principal Scientist, Project Planning and Business Development, Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai-600020, India. Received 28 March 2017; Accepted 7 June 2017; Available online 12 June 2017

Address For Correspondence: R.P. Sivakumaran, PG Scholar, Easwari Engineering College, Anna University, Chennai-600089, India E-mail: sivarajaprabu@gmail. com

Copyright © 2017 by authors and American-Eurasian Network for ScientificInformation (AENSI Publication). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ABSTRACT The world’s largest and fastest growing industry is without any doubt is the electronic industry. Rapid growth of any kind does have its own inevitable consequences. Here it is electronic waste (E-Waste), E-Waste is discarded electronic items or appliances. The unconventional disposal of electronic equipment generates toxicity of high levels. “Toxic Dust” found on computer monitors have certain chemical which are found to be harmful to the reproductive system and may also be a cause for neurological disorders. In India the people are not aware of the fact that this necessary evil is harmful to their health as well as their surroundings. In this paper the environmental problem related with electronic waste disposal are reviewed. The current and future production of electronic waste, the potential hazardous problems associated with their disposal and management practices are discussed. KEYWORDS: e-waste, toxic dust, neurological disorder, e-waste disposal, hazardous problems.

INTRODUCTION

Electronic waste, e-waste, scrap or waist and Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) describe discarded

electrical or electronic devices. A report indicates that by 2020, electronic waste (e-waste) from old computers in

the country will jump by 500% from the computers available in 2007 (Source: UN e-waste report, 2011). The e-

waste generated from discarded mobile phones will be 18 times higher than in 2007, 1.50 to 2.0 times higher for

TVs and double or triple from refrigerators (Source: UN e-waste report, 2011). In 2014, the total E-Waste in India

has been estimated to be 13,49,154 metric tons per year. At present India has about 85 million computers and is

expected to grow to 150 million computers by 2020. Certain chemicals if released untreated, e.g. cyanides,

polychlorinated biphenyls and mercury are highly toxic and exposure can lead to disease or death (Source: The

Economic Times dated July 2015).

Electronic waste encompasses of computers, printers, scanner, monitors, mobile phones, refrigerators,

washing machine, fax machines, keyboards, mouse, uninterruptible power supply, microwave oven, music

players, smart watches, televisions, cameras, media players, DVD-CD, floppy disks and automobile devices.

These electronic devices contains heavy metals such as Lead, Mercury, Barium, Arsenic, Cadmium, Chromium,

Beryllium and Selenium, precious metals such as Platinum, Gold and Silver, halogenated compounds such as Poly

Brominated Diphenyl Ethers and Poly Brominated Biphenyls, Chlorinated compounds such as Poly Vinyl

Chloride and Poly Chlorinated Biphenyl, metals such as Aluminium and copper. This paper deals with the

environment analysis of improper disposal of electronic waste.

523 R.P. Sivakumaran et al., 2017/Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences. 11(8) June 2017, Pages: 522-529

Fig. 1: Pile of e-waste

Life Cycle Of Electronic Devices:

Lifecycle of electronic devices comprises of four stages namely Primary Production, Manufacture, Usage

and Disposal.

A. Primary Production:

The first step in the production of electronic waste is mining. Manufacturing of electronic devices requires

mining to extract gold, silver, copper, palladium and cobalt. 23.5 million tonnes of the world’s CO2 is emitted

during the process of mining (Source: UNEP report, 2006).

B. Manufacture:

Large amount of energy are required to manufacture electronic devices. For manufacturing single unit of

computer 6400 Mega Joules of every are required. This is equivalent to 900 kilo grams of CO2 emission. This

energy can light a 100 watt bulb for a period of 26 months. Apart from this huge amount of energy, 1500 kilo

gram of water is also required to manufacture a single unit of computer [5].

C. Usage:

Lifetime of electronic devices are given below

Table 1: Life of Electronic Devices

S.NO ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT LIFE TIME (IN YEARS)

1 Mainframe 10

2 Minicomputer 5

3 Personal Computer 6

4 Notebook 5

5 Printer 10

6 Copying Equipment 8

7 Type writer 5

8 Telex 5

9 Cordless Phones 9

10 Facsimile 10

11 Smartphones 5

12 Feature phone 7

13 Television 9

14 Refrigerator 10

15 Washing machine 9

16 Air conditioner 10

17 User terminals and system 6

(Source:EWM rules, 2016)


These standards were provided by the UN council report 2011. Even the usage of electronic devices emits

CO2. A computer generates about 0.080 kilogram of CO2 per hour. Google Inc stated that an average google

search generates about 0.0002 grams of CO2. 0.0003 grams of carbon is emitted by spam messages. Internet

servers, fax machines, printers, wireless keyboard also emit large amounts of carbon[5].

D. Disposal:

Once electronic devices are discarded they become electronic waste. Illegal methods of disposal endangers

the environment as well as the people working at the disposal sites. The recycling process done by the unorganised

sector in a hazardous manner results in various health problems for all the people working in those sites.

Disposal of Electronic Waste:

The four unconventional methods of disposing electronic wastes are a) Uncontrolled Landfill (Dumping) b)

Incineration without chimneys c) Acid bath and d) Waterways.

Landfills are the most preferred disposal of solid waste including electronic waste. Historically, landfills have

been the most common methods of waste disposal and remain so in many places around the world. Lead, arsenic,

selenium , beryllium, copper, zinc, antimony trioxide, cadmium, polybrominated flame retardants and mercury

are some of the more toxic materials that can leach into the soil from dumped e-waste. However, due to the

problems associated with health due the toxic nature of e-waste chemicals, landfill is banned by US and UK

governments.

Incineration is a waste treatment technology that involves the combustion of organic materials. Incinerator

plants are the source of series toxic pollutants. The emissions from the incinerator are extremely toxic which

contain carcinogens and neurotoxins. These noxious fumes include dioxins and furans.

Acid bath involves submerging the printed circuit board in sulphuric acid. The dissolved copper from the

board is boiled with etched printed circuit boards. The copper sulphate obtained is added with iron scarp and

boiled further. The resulting product is copper sludge.

The electronic waste that has been deliberately dumped, or accidentally become afloat, in a lake, sea, ocean

or waterways pose major health hazards to humans and spoils the ground water to a greater extent. Ground water

levels are highly contaminated due to this. This poses a great threat to mankind. There is no stringent specified

laws on the methods of disposal of electronic waste. So most of the recycling methods are unscientific and

haphazardly done or are simply dumped in waste yards.

Developed countries export large quantities of electronic waste. This is done in the form of reusable

components. Hence, India is facing two streams of the same problems. One being the generation of its own

electronic waste and the other being of the from the developed countries. With increase in the number of people

using electronic devices and also people dumping the old ones for new has steadily increased the amount of

electronic waste. Recycling is said to be one of the best method of disposing the electronic waste, unfortunately

there are only a few scientific recycling units in India.

About 80 percent of the E-Waste generated in the US is exported to India, China and Pakistan. Many of

India’s city corporations burn E-Waste such as PC monitors, motherboard, PCBs, cables, CDs, toner cartridges,

light bulbs and tube-lights in the open. This releases large amount of lead and mercury into the atmosphere.

One has to accept the fact that IT companies are the main contributors to this giant leap of E-Waste. Of-

course electronic waste spectrum is broad. Another important fact in the burning of electronic waste is to extract

valuable components such as platinum, aluminium, copper and the ever precious gold.

The industrial revolution in the 18th century marked a new beginning in human civilisation. Likewise the

20th century is marked by the enormous growth of information and communication. This development has

brought greater quality of living to mankind in general. On the other side sadly it has led to the massive problem

of electronic waste disposal. Steps has to be taken by the government to curb the import of electronic waste, many

recyclers import e-waste in the name of recycling. The data provided from this envisaged project will be used to

analyse the toxic substances present and come up with a solution to safely dispose these substances under

precautionary methods. To find a solution is the need of the hour. Without a method of recycling or safety

disposing of electronic waste even “Go - green” policy will not be possible.

Impact - Health And Environmental:

The toxic materials presented in the electronic devices are as follows,

• PCB (polychrminated biphenyls) - Condensers, Transformers.

• Chlorofluorocarbon - Colling units, Insulation foam.

• Polyvinyl Chloride - Cable insulation.

• Barium - Getters in CRT

• Cadium - Rechargeable batteries.

• Antimony trioxide- Flame retardants.

• Brominated flame retardant- Printed circuit boards and Plastic cable casting.


• Lead - CRT screens, batteries, printed wiring boards.

• Mercury - Fluorescent lamps that provide backlighting in LCD, mercury wetted switches.

• Selenium - Older photocopying machine.

• Toner dust - Toner cartridges.

• Americium - Medical equipment, fire detectors, active sensing element in smoke detectors.

An Assocham-cKinetics study pointed out that the volume of e-waste globally generated is expected to reach

from 93.5 MT in 2016 to 130 MT in 2018. Now, India is emerging as one of the world’s major e-waste generators,

causing serious damage to the environment and to the health of the human beings. Indians are becoming wealthier

and are able to send a lot on electronic devices and various other appliances. This indirectly means more

generation of e-waste. Over 95% of this is managed by the unorganised sector mostly scrap dealers. Here in India

children in the age group of 10-15 years are engaged in these activities. There is no adequate protection or safety

norms followed. Inadequate legislation and the loop holes in them makes it difficult to control these happenings.

E-Waste workers in India are ignorant on its hazardous effects. Most of the workers suffer from respiratory

problems. As for the child labour, by the time they reach the age of 40-45 they are absolutely incapable of working

itself, says a study [5]. One major things which attracts these workers is the recovery of precious metals like gold,

platinum etc. To dismantle this concentrated acids are used. Mobile phones, televisions and computers are the

most dangerous because they contain high levels of lead, mercury and cadmium. These are discarded more

because of their short life span. 75% of the total waste generation in India comes from the government, public and

private sector. 70% of heavy metals and 40% of the lead found in landfills is generated from such e-waste. This

contaminates the ground water, pollutes the atmosphere and also leads to soil acidification. India is the second

largest mobile market and is also the fifth largest producer of e-waste [7]. The results obtained in this study is that

alarming levels of toxins are released into the atmosphere above and the soil beneath. When e-waste are dumped

at an area surrounded by agricultural land, the toxic chemicals present in the e-waste leach into the soil affecting

the ground water and the fields. The agricultural land gets destroyed. Many people who are dismantling e-waste

without any proper protection suffer from berryllios. Chronic exposure to arsenic and dioxins can cause severe

nerve damage, reduction in nerve conduction velocity, skin cancer, lung cancer and malfunction of the foetus.

Children in the age group 10-14 are working in dismantling and segregating e-waste. They are exposed to high

levels of lead. Lead exposure can cause diarrhoea, coma and even death. Sangrampur is a village near Kolkatta

that is commonly known as India’s e-waste village. The discarded electronic devices are dismantled by the

villagers and parts of it are extracted and sold at shops in Kolkatta. The dismantled parts of computer monitors

are used to make television sets and are sold at Chandi Chowk. Every home in this village are involved in breaking

down discarded computers, TV’s, mobiles, printers etc. The villagers life revolves around e-waste.

Fig. 2: Children in Sangrampur, E-Waste Village, India. (Source : Boomerang Businessweek, Sean Gallagher.

India, 2013)


Fig. 3: House in Sangrampur, E-Waste Village, India. (Source : Boomerang Businessweek, Sean Gallagher. India,

2013)

India totally generates approximately 18.5 million MT of e-waste every year. Only 2.5% of India’s total e-

waste gets recycled. More than 95% of the e-waste are managed by the unorganised sector and scrap dealers in

the market. Poor infrastructure and inadequate legislations lead to harmful effects on man and environment during

the process of recycling of e-waste [8]. A very alarming fact is that in India about the age group of 10-14 are

engaged in various e-waste activities, without proper protection [9]. Proper recycling of electronic devices are

needed as they contain toxic materials like zinc, lead, nickel, barium and chromium. These metal occur in high

concentrations than the regulated levels. Proper recycling is also needed for data security. E-Waste when disposed

without any proper data destruction results in data breaches and identity theft. E-waste is not going anytime soon,

it’s only going to get worse. By 2017, the volume of e-waste throughout the world is expected to rise by 35%

from 2012 and the weight of this garbage will be equal to eight of the Great Pyramids of Egypt [4].

Management Of Electronic Waste:

The first step is to create awareness among the people working at the recycling sites. The pollution control

board of each state must ensure that the E-Waste Management policies are followed by all the manufacturers,

consumers, recyclers, collection centres, dealers, refurbisher and dismantler. Many NGO’s like Pratham, United

Way of Mumbai, ChildLine India etc have started a movement known as DonateYouPC. This movement acts as

a bridge between the people who are willing to donate their old systems for charity. The authorised recycler,

dismantler, collection centre and refurbisher has to report the amount of e-waste generated annually to the

concerned pollution control board. Proper safety equipments has to be provided to the workers working at the

recycling facility. Consumers must ensure that the electronic waste generated by them are segregated through

authorised collection centres, dismantler, recycler or buy-back scheme. Manufactures of the products must be

made legally responsible for their products. Public awareness programs should be conducted to educate the public

about the hazards that are created due to electronic waste. The Government should strictly impose the guidelines

drafted by organisations such as Basel Convention and Toxics link. A survey was conducted about electronic

waste among the students of Easwari Engineering College, Ramapuram, Tamil Nadu. The result of this survey

are summarised as follows

Fig. 4: Bar Chart on idea about e-waste


Fig. 5: Bar Chart on reasons to discard electronic devices.

Fig. 6: Bar Chart on disposal of e-devices.

The businessmen in India are allowed to import waste scrapes against a license. Import of such waste is

allowed to be re-used as raw materials. Waste importers exploit the gaps in the import laws and continue to import

electronic wastes in the name of metal scrapes. These people didn’t care about environmental, occupational and

health issues as their main aim is to earn money. The burning of e-waste highly pollutes the atmosphere. It lets

out many toxic fumes which are highly hazardous. Due to this the waterways are also polluted, causing damage

to the soils. The uneducated poor society suffer the most. Indian IT market has not fully addressed the environment

problems created by e-waste. The above are some proactive measures to curb unconventional e-waste disposal

methods. But completely stopping these methods are highly impossible. Sensors can be used to capture all the

toxic chemicals that are let out during open burning, incineration, acid bath or landfill. Sensors are developed on

an integrated platform so that all the toxic fumes can be captured. The data provided by the sensor will be used to

calculate the hazard index on the disposal site. This hazard index will be calculated with the help of toxic index,

flammability index, reactivity index and composition of all the toxic fumes.


Fig. 7: System architecture for management of e-waste with sensors.

Conclusion And Future Work:

India’s rapid growth over the past 35 years has made its economy one of the largest in the world. The

breakneck of this rapid is e-waste. The results obtained from the study will help to create better awareness of the

toxin levels in the atmosphere generated from electronic waste. The people working in the incineration unit are

not aware of the hazards they face while working there. This study will help them to understand the danger of

their work. Maybe they will learn to protect themselves by using masks or special suits. The hazard index

calculated with the data provided by the sensor will be used to determine whether the e-waste disposal sites are

safe for human or not. Chatham Stephens suggested thats almost 65 percent of the affected people are children

and women. This study will also help the government to bring in more strict policies. As long as Electronic devices

contains toxic substances and are designed without any recycling aspect, they are a threat to the society. The

researchers have to look for alternative components for manufacturing of electronic products.

REFERENCES

1. Allsopp, M., B. Erry, B. Stringer, P. Johnston, D. Santillo, 2000. “Recipe for Disaster : A review of persistent

organic pollutants”, Greenpeace.

2. Antonio Pascale, Adriana Sosa, Cristina Bares, Alejandra Battlocletti, 2016. “E-Waste Informal Recycling:

An Emerging Source of Lead Exposurein South America”, 82(1): 196-201.

3. Athukorala, P., 2006. “Production fragmentation and trade integration: East Asia in a global context”, The

North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 17: 233-256.

4. Biswajit Debnath, Reshma Roy Choudhuri, Sadhan K Ghosh, 2015. “E-Waste Management- A Potential

Route to Green Computing”, International Conference on Soild Waste Management, 3(6): 669-675.

5. Devika, S., 2010. “Environmental Impact of Improper Disposal of Electronic Waste”, IEEE, pp: 29-31.

6. E-Waste Management Rules, Ministry of Environment, India, 2016.

7. FangchaoXu, Xin Wang, Xiaoyu Sun, ATM Abdullah, 2014. ”Influencing Factors and Moderating Factors

of Consumers’ Intentions to Participate in E-Waste Recycling”, 14(3): 2234-2240.


8. Gaidajis, G., K. Angelakoglou, D. Aktsoglou, 2010. “E-Waste Environmental Problems and Current

Management”, Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 3: 193-199.

9. Go Suzuki, Masayuki Someya, HidenoriMatsukami, Nguyen Minh Tue, Natsuyo Uchida, Le HuuTuyen,

HidetakaTakigami, Abraham Brouwer, 2016. “Comprehensive evaluation of dioxins and dioxin-like

compounds in surface soils and river sediments from E-Waste processing sites in a village in northern

Vietnam: Heading towards the environmentally sound management of e-waste”, Emerging Contaminants,

2(2): 98-108.

10. Gupta, J.P., B. Suresh Babu, 1998. “A new Hazardous Waste Index”, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 67: 1-

7.

11. Hai Yong Kang, Julie M Schoenung, 2006. “Estimation of future outflows and infrastructure needed to

recycle personal computer systems in California”, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 37: 1165-1174.

12. Jiawei Han, Micheline chamber and Diane Cerra, 2006. “Data mining concepts and techniques”, Second

Edition.

13. Ke Hu, Vijay Sivaraman, Blanca GallegoLuxan, Ashfaqur Rahman, 2016. “Design and Evaluation of a

Metropolitan Air Pollution Sensing System”, 16: 1448-1456.

14. Kevin Bridgen, Joe Webster, Irina Labunska and David Santiago, 2008. “Toxic Chemicals in Computers

Reloaded”

15. Nan Li, Gang Lu, Xinli Li and Yong Yan, 2015. “Prediction of Pollutant Emissions of Biomass Flames

Through Digital Imaging, Contourlet Transform and Support Vector Regression Modeling”, IEEE

Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 64(6): 2409-2416.

16. Rajeev Srivastava, Dinesh Sharma, 2015. “Factors Affecting E-Waste Management: An Interpretive

Structural Modeling Approach”, In the proceeding of 5th International Conference on Communication

Systems and Network Technologies.

17. Santanu Metia, Seth Daniel Oduro, Hiep Nguyen Duc and Quang Ha, 2016. “Inverse Air-Pollutant Emission

and Prediction Using Extended Fractional Kalman Filtering”, Applied Earth Observations and Remote

Sensing, 9: 2051-2063.

18. Siddarth Ghansela, 2013. “Green Strategy for Reducing E-Waste”, International journal of Advanced

Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 3(6): 476-480.

19. Tienhua, W.T., M. Neeli, 2008. “Understanding population dynamics WEEE recycling system in the

developing countries”, IEEE International symposium on Electronics and the Environment, pp: 1-6.

20. Tong, X., 2004. “Global mandate, national policies and local responses: scale conflicts in China’s

management of imported E-Waste”, IEEE International symposium on Electronics and the Environment, pp:

204-207.

21. Van Der Sloot H.A., 1996. ”Development in Evaluating Environmental Impact from utilization of bulk inert

wastes using Laboratory Leaching Tests And Field Verification”, 16(1): 65-81.

22. Yong Chul Jang, Timothy G. Town Send, 2003. “Leaching of lead from computer printed wire boards and

cathode ray tubes byMunicipal Solid Waste Landfill Leaches”, 37: 4778-4784.

Management of Electronic Waste Disposal In India · laws on the methods of disposal of electronic...

Documents

Transcript of Management of Electronic Waste Disposal In India · laws on the methods of disposal of electronic...