The Hindu : E-dumps trap the Capital

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 13, 2003

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E-dumps trap the Capital

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MARCH 12. For every new computer put in the market, one obsolete system on an average is disposed of in the Capital's growing e-dump, making Delhi the largest computer junkyard in the country.

Scattered in various pockets of the Capital including Turkman Gate, Mayapuri, Old Seelampur, Shastri Park, Lajpat Nagar, Kirti Nagar, Karkarduma, Mustafabad, Mandoli and Ferozabad are Delhi's e-dumps which are continuously emitting harmful toxic into the air, water and land.

This was found in a study conducted by a non-government organisation, Toxic Links, titled "Scrapping the hi-tech myth in Delhi'', which took into account electronic waste, its market and trade route of electronic waste with special emphasis on computer waste.

"Computer waste, which does not have any resale or reuse value, is openly burnt to extract metallic parts from it. The minimum number of computers procured by an average scale scraps dealers for recycling in Delhi is 20-25 per month. The large-scale scrap dealers handle thousands of PCs per month and the city has about 40 scrap dealers in and around Delhi who continue to pollute in the absences of any guidelines against it,'' says Gopal Krishna of Toxic Links.

The dump, which is barely a decade old, is flourishing and spreading its network mainly because of the absence of proper mechanisms of disposal, allowing toxic-laden high-tech products to get into the waste stream meant either for recycling or get dumped in landfill.

Computer waste poses significant environmental and health hazards. "Rapid advances in information technology has led to a parallel product obsolescence -- adding to the toxic waste stream. And while the problem has been recognised and laws laid down for disposal of e-waste around the world, India is yet to consider it a problem,'' says Toxic Links director Ravi Agarwal.

Environmentalists claim that the delay might prove very costly.

"The backyard recycling centre of the country is busy brewing into the system more hazardous waste than it can handle, and Delhi is the largest recycling market. Monitors are dismantled to recover cathode ray tube circuit board, copper, steel and plastic casting, hard disk, floppy drive and SNPS are broken down to recover copper and brass alloys, aluminium, iron and magnet. And since the Government is blank on the disposal of waste, scrap dealers continue to make hay,'' says Mr. Krishna.

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