Toxicity and Effects of E-Waste on the Environment
The unwanted, not used, or discarded e-devices are called e-waste. Have you ever thought about the destination of your previously used mobile or laptop through the waste stream? People prefer upgrading the e-devices they use. If you are an iPhone user, you may be familiar with this fact. But the question is where the used iPhone goes. If we don't consider this seriously, a serious threat can occur, affecting human health and the environment.
It is identified that e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world. The challenge is finding the best practice to manage the e-waste since the environmentally unsound practices do the worst. Also, these e-waste streams are rich with finite and important resources for the manufacturing industry. It is wise to collect those to avoid resource depletion and ensure the existence of manufacturing industries.
So through this discussion, the toxicity and effects of e-waste on the environment will be explored covering the following areas.
- What is e-waste
- What are the current practices of E-Waste Disposal
- How E-Waste Becomes Toxic to Living and Non-living Beings
- How E-Waste Becomes a Threat to the Environment
- How E-waste Becomes a Threat to Human
- How Can We Manage E-Waste Properly
What is E-Waste
Disposed electronic products that are not working well, are unwanted or are readily at the end of their life cycle are called e-waste. The generation of e-waste extends up to the 1970s. But the amount being generated is huge making it hard to manage. E-waste is considered to be hazardous. Because e-waste by itself contains a lot of harmful components. Also when we use inappropriate methods to treat e-waste, it produces toxic chemicals including dioxins, lead, and mercury.
As common items are included in e-waste, the following components can be identified.
- Computers
- Mobile phones
- Large household appliances
- Medical equipment
- Fax machines
- Copiers
What are the Current Practices of E-Waste Disposal
Since huge amounts of e-waste are generated, various practices are currently being used for the disposal of e-waste including
- Landfilling
- Acid baths
- Incineration
- Recycling
- Reuse
How E-Waste Becomes Toxic to Living and Non-living Beings
Mainly, there are two concerns about the toxicity of e-waste.
- E-waste itself contains a lot of harmful components.
- The inappropriate treatments to manage e-waste (environmentally unsound) can produce toxic components.
Through the manufacturing of e-devices, those devices contain toxic components. But when the users use them, the toxic components are not in contact with them. When these are disposed of, the environmentally unsound treatment practices let these toxic components to be released into the environment. Both the treatment site and neighboring communities can be affected by contaminated soil, water, and air.
What are the environmentally unsound e-waste treatment methods?
The environmentally unsound e-waste treatment methods include various practices like scavenging in e-waste dumpsites, dumping in water bodies or lands, landfilling e-waste together with regular waste without sorting, open burning or heating e-waste, having acid baths or acid leaching, stripping and shredding plastic coatings, doing disassembly of equipment manually.
Among these practices, open burning or heating has been identified to be the worst practice since it creates toxic fumes. These fumes can travel far from the place of generation, leaving the far-away communities with severe health risks.
How E-Waste Becomes a Threat to the Environment
E-waste becomes a threat to the environment when it is
- directly disposed of to the environment
- not treated well
The threat caused by e-waste extends throughout the environment including soil, water, and air.
It is recorded that e-waste has been directly disposed of in the regular landfills. Heavy metals and flame retardants are rich in e-waste. Then it contaminates the soil by directly seeping into the soil. The heavy metal-contaminated soil has less productivity. It is recorded that factors like temperature, soil type, soil composition, and pH of the soil define the amount of soil getting contaminated. The entire soil biota is affected. The important microorganism that keeps the soil nutritious can be affected.
The crops grown in such farmlands accumulate those toxic components. When the food chain starts from such producers, the entire food chain gets affected by these toxic components. This has been observed as related to the degradation of biodiversity since such toxics may lead even the death of a relevant species based on their capabilities and tolerance.
Later the contaminants accumulate in groundwater. And then contaminated groundwater gets mixed up with surface water of the water bodies like wells, springs, and lakes. The animal will drink the contaminated water eventually resulting even their death. Further contaminated water tends to get acidified and toxified which makes it an unsafe habitat for aquatic species both marine and freshwater. Such organisms can be at huge risk leading to a biodiversity decline.
Shredding and melting materials in the e-waste stream is an informal method used to manage e-waste. But these processes release dust particles and dust which contaminate the air. Both fauna and fauna species are a risk due to this. Faunal species suffer from respiratory issues and sighting issues. Floral species would carry out a reduced photosynthetic rate due to dust particles on the leaf surface.
How E-waste Becomes a Threat to Human
When the soil gets contaminated with toxic components, it reduces productivity leading to food security issues in the long term. As well as it reduces both the quantity and the quality of the harvest, creating economic challenges among farmers. Sucg farmlands are not suitable for further farming activities.
The crops grown on farmlands contaminated with toxic components, ultimately contain such harmful components in the harvest. This is a huge risk to the consumer's health.
Contaminated water sources can be used by humans without knowing the facts. This is a severe health risk and it lacks clean water for consumption.
People in treatment sites as well as in nearby communities can experience severe health issues due to released dust particles and toxins through informal waste treatment methods. There can be respiratory issues, sighting issues, asthma, chronic diseases, cancers, etc.
There are valuable and infinite resources in e-waste streams making it a good economic activity for people, especially in developing countries. Both children and women have worked as waste scavengers in landfills collecting important matters and selling them. But this directly exposes them to the toxic components.
E-waste can cause reduced asthma incidents, reduced lung and respiratory functions, and adverse neonatal outcomes (increased rate of premature birth and stillbirth). Additional lead has been found to be the reason for neurodevelopment, learning, and behavior outcomes when lead is released through informal e-waste recycling. Mercury has the potential to cross the placenta. As well as it can contaminate breast milk.
How Can We Manage E-Waste Properly
The lack of regulations has caused further continuation of these informal e-waste treatment processes. And also these people lack proper training and sophisticated infrastructure.
The potential pollutants can go far away from the place of generation. Therefore both national and international level efforts are needed to manage e-waste.
- The need to develop and implement national-level e-waste management legislation.
We need to sort and collect the e-waste properly. Instead of going to regular landfills, proper disposal practices should be followed like recycling. The developed legislation should incorporate the necessary health protection methods. This is to ensure the proper practices have been engaged in e-waste treatments and protect public and environmental health.
- There are informal e-waste treatment methods already installed. We can implement interventions to improve them. Then proper monitoring needs to be enforced.
- Developed and enhanced awareness of workers about the toxicity of these substances can reduce potential health risks. Precautions are needed to be introduced.
- An international level management is necessary.
Already there have been initiated regional and international approaches to manage the e-waste and its impacts.
The Regional Efforts on E-waste Management
As examples of regional-level efforts for environmentally sound e-waste management,
- The Bamako Convention in African countries
- The Waigani Convention in South Pacific countries can be shown.
The Bamako convention was signed on the 30th of January 1991 and it aims to prohibit the import of all hazardous and radioactive wastes into the African continent for any reason. Further, it acts on minimizing and controlling transboundary movements of hazardous wastes within the African continent. Also, all ocean and inland water dumping or incineration of hazardous wastes has been prohibited.
The Waigani convention was signed on 16th September 1995 and entered into force in 2001. Banning the importation into Forum Island Countries of hazardous and radioactive wastes and controlling the transboundary movement and management of hazardous wastes within the South Pacific region is the objective of this convention.
The Basel Convention is an International Effort on E-waste Management
The Basel Convention was adopted on 22nd March 1989 to control the transboundary movement of hazardous waste and its disposal including e-waste. That contributes through developing guidance for environmentally sound e-waste management. Such guidance has been provided through workshops and programs