Those Greedy Indians: Godfather of e-waste

Few years back, I was pleasantly surprised to read a caption of an article saying that Indian and Jews have a stark similarity. The article turned me topsy-turvy when I went through it. It said that both Indians and Jews have identical genes when it comes to hoarding waste and garbage in anticipation of some future use or better resale value. It further said that one-third space of almost all households of Jews and Indians are occupied with hard garbage. One would find such waste stock spilling beyond basements, lofts and sometimes garages. The relay band just passes over from generation to generation. In around 100 years, some hardware turns into antiques and fetch some good money. This justifies the end for future generation to carry on further till the dooms day.

Historically, people have a penchant for preserving heirlooms and antiques. This could be termed as a sound practice. However, hoarding broken utensils, furniture and equipment could be termed as foolish. While the former appreciates with time, the later becomes a huge burden to carry forward with ever constricting space.

The advent of electrical and electronic household products generally come costly particularly those connected with information technology. Computer and mobile phone have flooded the market as well as an educated household. The tragedy with these products is that they are very costly and are eased out by new generation products with state of the art technology. Their resale value drops logarithmically.  These e-wastes depreciate geometrically vulnerable to fetching dirt price as scrap disposal. However, the greed does not allow a person to throw them into the garbage bin.

A common educated household might be containing around 300-500 Kg of e-Waste in expectation. But, there is a big difference now. These wastes contain hazardous materials including radioactive nuclides such as Cobalt-60. Though, there are considerable precious trace materials such as Gold, Silver, Copper, Platinum etc., they need enough scraps and good technology to strain out profitably.

Central Pollution Control Board of India estimates that the quantum of e-waste generation would exceed 0.8 million TPD and individual household contribution would be 15%. A simple projection of the popularity that electrical and electronic good are getting particularly in Indian economics scenario, it would well jump 2 million TPD by 2017. And apart from contributing to the e-waste to be around 20% by then, no agency has ever come up with the amount that remains hidden in the precincts of individual household. That could be a mammoth another 30% making the total e-waste generation by 2020 to be more than 3 MTPD by 2020. I doubt if e-waste rotting in millions of repair shops nationwide has been reckoned with in such census.

We, greedy Indians are in a mess. This is a catch-22, a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules. The way thing is this household waste which remains unaccounted by public census, in a very short time, may become a huge bulging belly of residential houses.

I had around 500 KG of such e-waste in my house namely desk top computer, laptops, dot matrix printer, ink jet printer, UPS, stabilizers, radio, inverter, ceiling fans, food processer, washing machine, end-of-life scooter etc. waiting anxiously for fetching reasonably good resale price. After years of waiting, recently, a major bulk went to neighborhood scrap merchant. 

Finally, some good sense crept into my mindset. I donated most of workable or needing some reconditioning e-products to a nearby village school. In return, I am invited to their routine functions. The teachers also bid me regards when I come across.

My house now has the much needed breathing space. I am happy.