E-waste: A Global menace
If there is one gadget that each person has, it would be a mobile phone. Of course it is very handy when making calls, taking photos and also browsing the net. Apparently, there isn't any mobile phone brand that does not have Wi-Fi capabilities these days. While you deal with your mobile phones each day, was there a time when you asked yourself just how green can a mobile phone be? How was it processed?
image source Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0 license. contributed by baselactionnetwork
When we buy our smartphones or any other electronic gadget, are we condoning eco-friendly motives or greedy entrepreneurs that only care about their business or money and never on the environmental impact of their business?
Today we are going to assess the eco-friendliness of these electronic gadgets and how they affect our immediate environment.
When we talk about e-waste we are talking about electronic waste which is a municipal Solid waste which is created and accumulated from used and discarded electronic components around our environment.these gadgets has been used beyond their expected life span.These waste also include the materials or substances used in producing these gadgets as well. Examples of e-waste include electrical bulbs, cathode ray tubes,computer components, GSM or phone components, printers, air conditioners, refrigerators, house hold appliances and motor parts. The main reason behind the increase in e-waste is rapid product obsolesce.
RAPID PRODUCT OBSOLESCE
For the fact that these electronic gadgets come in handy also makes it lose its durability very fast. These products fade out with time. What I mean by they fade out with time is that the more new products flood the market the more we push the old ones aside.
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source Wikimedia. Creative commons license. Contributed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Manufacturing Engineering
Today, about 20 to 50 million tonnes of e-waste are being generated annually and about 300 to 500 million obsolete computer are being discarded in United States of America alone with over 100 million cell phones as well.what about other parts of the world like China which is one of their main hub, Europe and our motherland, Africa. All these eventually became junks which becomes waste.
We are all rushing to buy the latest technology in town in order to follow the trend. Even in terms of software, they also get outdated too. E-waste business is a big business in today’s economy. The basal convention is aimed at controlling the flow of e-waste around the globe today but how many can they truly control?
IMPACT OF e-WASTE ON OUR ENVIRONMENT
When we talk about our environment we mean our immediate surroundings. Since e-waste encompasses all forms of electronics ranging from mobile phones to computers down to our daily house hold electronics this means that the effect on us can be severe because they pose real treat to us and the world at large.
this electronic waste dump site covers 32 square kilometer and most are not thermal or bio degradable. Source Pixabay. CC0 creative commons license. Contributed by vkingxl
In computers alone, the circuit boards contains heavy metals like cadmium and lead. The batteries contain cadmium, poly vinyl chloride 12(PVC) copper cables which when burnt releases toxic dioxins , cathode ray tubes which contains lead oxide and barium, mercury in the flat screen and even poly chlorinated biphenyl(PCB) which can be found in computer capacitors.
IMPACT OF e-WASTE ON AIR
The air we breathe in contributes greatly to our health. E-waste causes air pollution which is dangerous to our health. Most times, scavengers on landfill sites go around looking for all those improperly disposed electronic gadgets and these include copper wires, hot plates, electric kettles, computers etc. they burn these waste in search of copper because copper is known to be one of the most expensive metal.
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Source wikimediaCreative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Contributed by Alex Proimos
By burning there waste, they release hydrocarbons into the air which is not good to the health when inhaled. The vaporization of mercury in fire in landfill sites causes health risk too which include asthma (difficulty in breathing especially when impure air is around). It can cause lung damage in the long run too as well as eye and skin irritation.
Poly-brominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) in these e-waste can cause skin damage when it comes in contact with the skin. It can even affect the ozone layer because e-waste contains chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) which destroys the ozone layer
IMPACT OF e-WASTE ON WATER
E-waste generally contains heavy metals and such metals include lithium, lead, barium and mercury. Of which in most case these are usually found in our mobile phones and computer batteries. When all these are littered around and when it rains, they leach into the ground and when they do they can contaminate our ground water sources.
Ground water connects to so many fresh water body such as streams, ponds, lakes and rivers (these are surface water bodies which makes the pollution severe). These fresh water bodies are sources of water supply to so many people especially for those in rural areas. When people consume this water they begin to get sick because the water is contaminated and contaminated water is difficult to treat.
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When lead contaminates a water body it cause lead poisoning which can cause anorexia, muscle pain, weakness of the body, headache, brain damage to human being or animal that consume the water and this can cause death eventually.
These metals and chemicals generated by e-waste are carcinogenic (cancer causing) in nature and as we all know, cancer is one of the leading cause of death in our world today. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cause damage to the kidney of animals because PVC are soluble in water.
IMPACT OF e-WASTE ON OUR SOIL
These heavy metals and chemicals from e-waste are released into the soil through leaching. All these e-waste are NON BIODEGRADABLE which means they cannot be decomposed by forces of nature.
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source pxhere CC0 creative commons license. Author: unknown
Even as these metals and chemicals pass through the soil to get to the ground water and pollute it, the same way it infiltrates into our soil thereby contaminating our soil-crop-food-pathway which is a sure way these toxins are exposed to humans. also, incinerated ash that are by-products of these e-waste after burning them also pose a great amount of hazard to our soil.
Since these toxins are non-biodegradable, they stay a long time in the soil and this makes both humans and animals more vulnerable to them. They contain cadmium and cadmium is easily absorbed by plants and when we consume such plants they cause health issues for us. Lead also affect the soil structure greatly.
CONCLUSION
In the global trend today, e-waste is the fastest growing municipal solid waste. This is because e-waste is one of the largest source of heavy metals and organic pollutant especially in developing countries. The toxins they contain have an irreversible effect on our environment today. Nowhere seems to be safe, our soil, our water and the air we breathe are a big part of the human existence and that is why they have adverse effect on our health.
It would be of great help if we practice standard ways to properly dispose these waste in a way that the effects can be minimized because we cannot totally wipe out e-waste in the whole world.
E-waste management should be properly checked and regulated by both governmental bodies and non-governmental bodies in order to minimize these hazardous substances emitted by e-waste. In the long run, the solution to preventing the hazardous components from e-waste is from its production. A precautionary principle should be laid down in order to control the increasing generation of e-waste just like recovery and reuse from producers of these electronic gadgets, reduction of volumes.
The use of renewable materials as well as energy should also be considered as well as production of biodegradable components and material. Adopting recycling policy of these electronic products is also not a bad idea.
Let’s think green and save our planet. For now, earth is the only home we have and so we need to protect our home from being destroyed.
Thanks for taking time to read this article.
Regards, @prettyprecy
Regards, @prettyprecy
Hi @prettyprecy! You have done a great job here. Your hard work is quite reflective here. I just want to take a second to thank you for bringing this wonderful article on the awareness about e-waste! It is really appreciated.
Moreover, I have learnt quite new things here that- in computers alone, the circuit boards contains heavy metals like cadmium and lead. The batteries contain cadmium, poly vinyl chloride 12(PVC) copper cables which when burnt releases toxic dioxins , cathode ray tubes which contains lead oxide and barium, mercury in the flat screen and even poly chlorinated biphenyl(PCB) which can be found in computer capacitors.
I loved your article and wishing you a very happy time here! Keep steeming and bring some interesting articles like this in the coming days as well.. :)
Cheers!! :)
I'm glad you learnt something, thanks for reading
You are most welcome!! :)
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Hello! I find your post valuable for the wafrica community! Thanks for the great post! @wafrica is now following you! ALWAYs follow @wafrica and use the wafrica tag!
The good news is now there is money to be made via recycling. The scrap dealers go about looking for pieces of plastics and metal to be bought at a reasonable price. Some scrap dealers bought some huge chunk of metal close to ₦10,000,000 (equivalent to $27,000) from a factory not too far from where I stay. I know many may not recycle for the sake of the environment, at least they will do it for the money :)
After getting the money from selling these scrap what next?
These slap dealers still burn most of these materials which eventually releases toxins into the environment.
I am sure that most of them are not aware of the harm they are causing to themselves and to others.and that is why they die from different ailments because they are directly in contact with these toxins.
Burn? Why would they burn the metal? No, they don't burn the metal. Rather they would melt it in a recycling plant.
Recycling plant don't burn the metals. They simply crush them into pallet, melt it and remould into another material . The only challenge with recycled material is that they do not have second hand value
E-waste related issues is a big problem in Indian sub-continent. A lot of poor people actually tries to extract tiny amounts of gold from components and this is a health issue.
A lot of what we humans do is at the expense of our ecosystem. We need to think green, speak green and live green.
Kudos for the awareness.
This is quite a very detailed post alerting us the danger that comes with waste arising from our discarded gadgets. Truly, we are always fast with pursuing the need tech in vogue leaving us with too many waste.
I hope people embrace recycling soon to at least reduce these worrying numbers..Nice work u did here
@prettyprecy good work there