India is sitting on a ticking e-waste time bomb. Technology has never sold faster. Mobile phones, televisions, laptops, tablets. Everyone across social and geographic strata is getting wired.
Technology, they say, will even save the environment.
But the dark side of the growth story has just begun to reveal itself. We are facing the onset of an unprecedented tsunami of electronic waste.
To say that discarded electronic appliances - if not recycled properly - can lead to pollution, toxicity, environmental damage and complications in human health would be an understatement.
As people go through electronics faster and faster, the problem gets harder to solve.
So what's the scale of India's e-waste? It's a scary answer.
Here's what the numbers say:
1641,metric kilo tonnes
- That's how much e-waste was generated in India in 2014
- That's nearly four times the weight of the Empire State Building - a 102-storey skyscraper
- 70% of that mountain of e-waste is contributed by the public and private industrial sectors
- This contains over 1,000 different substances that are toxic - lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium to name a few
- E-waste typically includes computer monitors, LCDs, air-conditioners, fridges, mobile phones, chargers, cathode rays tubes, motherboards etc
500%
- The predicted increase of e-waste from televisions in India by 2020, according to a Rajya Sabha report
- Iron and steel make up 50% of e-waste from TVs; plastics account for around 21%
- Computers, televisions and mobile phones are the most dangerous. They have the maximum levels of cadium, lead and mercury and are discarded most often
- Individual households account for around 15% of India's e-waste
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