Electronic waste disposal a burgeoning problem
Posted on 15. Nov, 2009 by admin in Technology
The world is suffering from a strange issue that wasn’t known 20 years back. It is about electronic waste disposal or recylcing of the electronics considered useles.
These include but are not limited to cell phones, PC monitors, electronic games, televisions, to circuit boards, chips etc.
Majority of these electronics contain toxic metal overloads so simply are unfriendly for land fills. Besides, the electronics gadgets that are considered waste also contain loads of plastic and non-decomposable metals. To dispose these without causing damage to mankind is a challenge to any government.
There are some new entrepreneuring ideas that sprung off this issue; those that collect and recycle the electronics wastes and junk. These businesses pay you to clear off your electronic junk. They break down the televisions, useless computers, mobiles, etc either to reuse or recycle or sometimes just sell some of the usable parts. However, we do not know what these businesses will do of the unusable parts from the junk they collected.
There are concerns surrounding the health of those people working with such electronic waste disposal businesses. No doubt they are exposed to several hazardous chemicals and toxins. There is also no monitoring agency or authority that takes care of safe disposal of the hazardous electronic wastes; as much as 6 billion tons and still adding.
However, awareness about safe disposal and handling of e-wastes can help governments to give it a serious thinking and they may soon come up with some human-friendly steps to handle the disposal and recycling of this hazardous waste in the coming years.
