Context:

The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have signed an MOU to set up the country’s first e-waste clinic in Bhopal.

About

• Electronic waste will be collected door-to-door or could be deposited directly at the clinic in exchange for a fee.
• The door-to-door collection will happen in two ways. Either separate carts for the collection of e-waste will be designed, or separate bins will be attached to existing ones meant for solid and wet waste.
• The CPCB will provide technical support at the unit and the collected hazardous waste will then be sent to Bengaluru for recycling.
• The clinic is being conceived in compliance with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
• It would be a 3-month pilot project, which, if successful, will be replicated everywhere in India.

E-waste:

• Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. It is a term for electronic products that have become unwanted, obsolete, and have reached the end of their useful life.
• Electronic waste products have exhausted their utility value through redundancy, replacement, or breakage and include both “white goods” such as refrigerators, washing machines, and microwaves and “brown goods” such as televisions, radios, computers, and cell phones.

E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016:

• The rules extend to Producer, consumer, collection centre, dismantler and recycler manufacturer, dealer, refurbished, and Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO). However, micro and small industries are exempted.
• The applicability of the rules extends to components, consumables, spares, and parts of EEE. Further, Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) and other mercury-containing lamps brought are under the purview of rules.
• Collection mechanism-based approach has been adopted to include collection centre, collection point, take back system etc for collection of e-waste by Producers under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).

Impact on Human Health:

• The complex composition and improper handling of e-waste adversely affect human health. Researchers have linked e-waste to adverse effects on human health, such as inflammation and oxidative stress – precursors to cardiovascular disease, DNA damage, and possibly cancer.
• Due to the crude recycling process, many pollutants, such as persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals, are released from e-waste, which can easily accumulate in the human body through the inhalation of contaminated air.
• The primitive methods used by unregulated backyard operators (e.g., the informal sector) to reclaim, reprocess, and recycle e-waste materials expose the workers to a number of toxic substances.