E-waste recycled in dangerous ways

A study conducted by Assocham-Frost & Sullivan in 2016 predicted that India’s e-waste load would touch 30 tonnes by 2018. Only two per cent of this is recycled, which begs the question what happens to the rest of it?

A major part of the recycling is done by the informal sector which adopts hazardous methods. Ewaste contains plastic, metal, cables, batteries and printed circuit boards. The wastes are collected and then sent for recycling.

Mohit Kumar, the Operations Manager at Ramky, says, “Apart from PCBs or mother boards, everything else is easy to recycle.” At present, mother boards are supposed to be sent to other places to be recycled, as there is no facility for recycling them within the city. However, for informal units, motherboards are gold mines. They are burnt at high temperatures for extracting the precious metals in them. Mujeeb Quadari, the Director of Z-Environ, a dismantling company, says the process is extremely dangerous; the fumes can spread up to five km and cause lung damage.

Other items that cannot be recycled are tubelights and CFL bulbs. The white powder in tubelights contains mercury, which is supposed to be sent to a waste treatment facility. Bhadra Girish, an environment engineer sais, “India doesn't have the tech to recycle tubelights. After the white powder is removed, it is crushed and buried in landfills.”