What is Electronic Waste

The word e waste or electronic waste is used to describe the discarded electronics or electrical devices. The used electrical appliances or electronic devices which have been destined for resale, salvage, re use or disposal is classified as e waste.

What are the Harmful Effects?

Any sort of informal or inadequate processing of the electronic waste or e waste, especially in the developing or under developed countries can result in a serious pollution and health problems due to the fact that these underdeveloped countries have a limited to nonexistent regulatory authority or oversight of the processing of e waste.

The components of Electronic waste also called electronic scrap, such as the CRTs can also contain a high amount of various contaminants such as beryllium, cadmium, lead or even brominates flame retardants. In the underdeveloped or developing countries, the disposal or recycling of any electronic waste or e waste can also involve a huge risk to the communities and the workers and very special care has to be taken in order to avoid any harmful or even lethal exposure in the recycling operations due to leaking and oozing of several heavy metals from incinerator ashes or landfills

Recycling of Electronic waste

The Audio Visual components such as VCRs, televisions, mobile phones, stereo equipments or any other handheld device or computer will contain significant amount of components which include elements which are highly valuable and are also suitable for reuse or reclamation such as gold, lead and copper.

One of the biggest challenges to the recycling of this E Waste, is the proper disposal and recycling of the printed circuit boards from electronic waste. These circuit boards contain a high number of previous metals such as platinum, gold and silver, while they also include base metals such as aluminum, copper and iron.

One of the ways in which this electronic waste is processed is by melting the circuit boards, burning of the cable cover or sheathing in order to recover the copper wires and also an open pit acid leaching which separates the metals which are of value.

The more conventional method of electronic recycling is mechanical separation and shredding however the efficiency of this method of recycling is extremely low. There are also other alternative methods such as the cryogenic decomposition, and these have been studied and applied for the recycling of printed circuit boards.

How is proper electronic recycling beneficial?

The proper disposal and recycling of all electronics and electrical devices will reduce the emissions of green house gasses, prevent any health problems and also create jobs in the recycling industry.

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