The Waste That Shouldn’t Be Wasted:
11 02 2015
By Aparna Pande
A survey conducted in Delhi, by Maitreyi college affiliated to the Delhi university shows abysmally low knowledge about eWaste disposal among the people. Most of the eWaste which is being disposed by the people, ends up in being refurbished and resold , inside toxic landfills or incinerators. According to EPA, only 15- 20% of the eWaste disposed in India, is recycled. Another aspect of the the problem is that reuse and refurbishment, which accounts for disposal of most of the eWaste isn’t formalised in India. The e-waste (Management and Handling) act ,2010 does not mention refurbishment or reuse as a part of the plan to manage e Waste. The only legal manner to dispose e Waste is recycling of the e Waste. Mr Shahi Pandit , associated with All India Kabadi Mazdoor Manasangh , tells us in a telephonic conversation that recycling being an expensive process the costs are met by the eWaste collectors, by selling a huge part of the materials to UN-formalised refurbishment facilities. He further adds that refurbishment being unformalised, does not protect the rights of the people working for the industry. The question that confronts us is – ‘What to do of our old computers, mobiles, calculators, batteries, DVDs, CDs, floppies etc?’ According to Centre for Science and Environment , these everyday gadgets, especially computers form a huge part of our e Waste, but the giants manufacturing them seldom have easy ‘take back’ policies. For most of them these services are non existent. International and national giants of IT sectors like Wipro, HCL, Nokia, Acer, Motorola and LGE provide take back services, but they are mostly available to uses from big cities. A large number of consumers ,who do not live in urban areas, cannot access these facilities at all.
In our country, we wasted nothing. Old towels were used for mopping and were worn down to ribbons. So we the old clothes and plastics and polythene. Every product had a life, which was made longer by refurbishment and inventing new ways to use it to its full capacity. Essentially very less was discarded. But improving technology introduced us to a new kind of waste ,which we did not know what to with – the e Waste. And growing prosperity gave us the habit of discarding things quickly thus traditional value of recycle of products needs to be revisited.
A survey conducted in Delhi, by Maitreyi college affiliated to the Delhi university shows abysmally low knowledge about eWaste disposal among the people. Most of the eWaste which is being disposed by the people, ends up in being refurbished and resold , inside toxic landfills or incinerators. According to EPA, only 15- 20% of the eWaste disposed in India, is recycled. Another aspect of the the problem is that reuse and refurbishment, which accounts for disposal of most of the eWaste isn’t formalised in India. The e-waste (Management and Handling) act ,2010 does not mention refurbishment or reuse as a part of the plan to manage e Waste. The only legal manner to dispose e Waste is recycling of the e Waste. Mr Shahi Pandit , associated with All India Kabadi Mazdoor Manasangh , tells us in a telephonic conversation that recycling being an expensive process the costs are met by the eWaste collectors, by selling a huge part of the materials to UN-formalised refurbishment facilities. He further adds that refurbishment being unformalised, does not protect the rights of the people working for the industry. The question that confronts us is – ‘What to do of our old computers, mobiles, calculators, batteries, DVDs, CDs, floppies etc?’ According to Centre for Science and Environment , these everyday gadgets, especially computers form a huge part of our e Waste, but the giants manufacturing them seldom have easy ‘take back’ policies. For most of them these services are non existent. International and national giants of IT sectors like Wipro, HCL, Nokia, Acer, Motorola and LGE provide take back services, but they are mostly available to uses from big cities. A large number of consumers ,who do not live in urban areas, cannot access these facilities at all.
In our country, we wasted nothing. Old towels were used for mopping and were worn down to ribbons. So we the old clothes and plastics and polythene. Every product had a life, which was made longer by refurbishment and inventing new ways to use it to its full capacity. Essentially very less was discarded. But improving technology introduced us to a new kind of waste ,which we did not know what to with – the e Waste. And growing prosperity gave us the habit of discarding things quickly thus traditional value of recycle of products needs to be revisited.
No comments:
Post a Comment