| | JUNE 20209THE HARMFUL MATERIALS CONTAINED IN ELECTRONICS PRODUCTS, COUPLED WITH THE FAST RATE AT WHICH WE'RE REPLACING OUTDATED UNITS, POSE A REAL DANGER TO HUMAN HEALTHThe net effect is a higher rate of obsolescence, which is leading to growing piles of e-waste. Despite legislation in place, there is still a gap in knowledge and awareness of the communities on the issues of e-waste handling and management. It is important to understand the knowledge and awareness levels of the consumers of electronic products who ultimately become the generators of e-waste in a community. Creating awareness at juncture on e-waste man-agement is very important. The more consumers know about e-waste the better, are the chance to make more informed decisions about e-waste dis-posal. E-waste is not hazardous though, however, the hazardous constituents present in the e-waste render it hazardous when such wastes are dismantled and processed, since it is only at this stage that they pose hazard to health and environment.Electronics & electrical equipment seem efficient and environmentally friendly, but there are hidden dangers associated with them once these become e-waste. The harmful materials contained in elec-tronics products, coupled with the fast rate at which we're replacing outdated units, pose a real danger to human health if electronics products are not properly processed pri-or to disposal.Electronics products like computers and cellphones contain a lot of different toxins. For example, Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) of computer monitors contain heavy metals such as lead, barium and cadmium, which can be very harmful to health if they enter the water sys-tem. These materials can cause damage to the human ner-vous and respiratory systems. Flame-retardant plastics, used in electronics casings, release particles that can damage human endocrine func-tions. These are the types of things that can happen when unprocessed e-waste is put directly in landfill.The existing practices of e-waste management in In-dia suffer from quite a few disadvantages like appro-priate inventory, unhealthy conditions of informal recycling, poor awareness and reluctance on part of the corporate to address the critical issues involved. As such, these lead to toxic materials entering the waste stream with no special precautions to avoid the known adverse effects on the environment and human health and recoverable bye-products are wasted when economically valuable materials are dumped or unhealthy conditions are developed during the informal recycling. In India, recycling of e-waste is almost en-tirely left to the informal sector, which does not have adequate means to handle either the increasing quantities or certain processes, lead-ing to intolerable risk for human health and the environment.The Centre has come-out with amend-ments in existing rules to ensure bet-ter management of e-waste and bio-medical waste through re-vised targets and monitoring under the Central Pollution Control Board. The amend-ed e-waste (management) rules, notified by the en-vironment ministry made it mandatory for the `Producer Responsibility Organisations' (PROs) to register themselves with the CPCB - a move which will help the central pol-lution watchdog to keep a constant watch on them to check their activities. Dr. Abhijit Sarkar
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