No laws to control e-waste, Ahmedabad’s a dumpyard
Pulkit Vasudha
Ahmedabad, July 28: TULSI Ram (15) unscrews a stabilizer and removes the battery, the circuit board from its plastic casing. His brother, Gehri Lal (12), uses hammer, chisel, his bare hands and teeth to disassemble clumps of copper wiring from a brass frame. Tulsi and Gehri are kabadiwallahs, who disassemble electrical goods and sell them to metal and scrap dealers in Ahmedabad, Surat and even Mumbai. “Copper sells for Rs 300 per kilogram, aluminium for Rs 115 per kilogram and casing sells for Rs 12 per kilogram,” says Gehri.
In today’s world, e-waste has rapidly become a worldwide environmental problem. In the absence of laws specifying the management, disassembling, reuse and disposal of e-waste, it is processed and disposed along with regular waste, leading to severe environmental pollution.
A large section of workers are engaged in dismantling of e-waste. In the absence of proper rules, lives of such workers are jeopardized due to their constant exposure to toxic metals and fumes. In Ahmedabad, as well as in other parts of the country, electrical, household and commercial waste are sold to feriwallahs, who do rounds of the city. It then goes to informal disassembling units, which segregate different metals, plastics, batteries and circuits so that they can be sold and reused.
However, a large part of the waste, both plastic and electronic, end up along with the municipal waste.
Sukh Lal, another kabadiwallah, says, “If the dealer does not see any use of a specific item, we have no other choice but to throw it on the streets or in an empty area.” This waste, being non-biodegradable, is severely harmful to the environment.
According to a report by Toxics Link, an environmental NGO, each computer contains at least 50 highly toxic metals and compounds. When Parna Mukherjee, an environmental law student of the School of Law (Gujarat University), conducted a survey in Ahmedabad in 2006, 88 per cent of the graduates she questioned did not even know what e-waste is.
Toxics Link studied the e-waste pattern across the country and found that while Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore top the list of e-waste generators, cities like Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad, have become dumping grounds for e-waste. Ahmedabad had 3,287 tonnes of e-waste during the period 2004-05.
Despite the rise in e-waste in the last two years, the Central and state governments have not taken any measures to check e-waste pollution.
Sanjeev Tyagi, Secretary of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), however, maintains, “The situation in Gujarat is not as bad as it in the rest of the country. Waste disposal rules have to be amended to include e-waste. In the absence of any law, we can only issue guidelines for the citizens.”
Rohit Prajapati, who runs an organisation called Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti in Vadodara, says, “The level of awareness in regard to environmental protection is dismally low in India. All the e-waste generated by individuals goes into domestic waste. Even commercial and industrial enterprises do not have proper means of e-waste disposal and finally end up with municipal waste.”
Prajapati believes that the only solution to this problem is to integrate Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in India. “The manufacturing company then becomes responsible for the safe disposal of its product. It must take its product back after its useful life, then reuse or recycle it to prevent environmental damage.”
Preeti Mahesh, an environmental activist working with Toxics Link, says, “Most of the e-waste in India lands up in informal recycling units, where valuable metals and other parts are extracted and sold for reuse. Local e-waste disassembling units pose serious health hazards to the workers.”
Source: Indian Express