E-Waste and its Negative Impacts on Environment

E-Waste negative impacts on soil, water, and on humans

Billions of people are using a lot of electronic gadgets, therefore, it is natural that a lot of e-waste produce. Americans throw away an estimated 50 billion dollars in e-waste material every year. The World Health Organization is warning that the amount of e-waste around the world is growing significantly but what is e-waste and why many health risks are associated with electronic waste. E-waste includes all discarded electric or electronic devices and danger produced from e-waste may come from direct contact with harmful materials and heavy metals such as lead cadmium and chromium from inhalation of toxic fumes and the leaching of toxic materials and their accumulation in the food chain.

According to researches the huge amount of lead in e-waste if released into the environment could cause severe damage to human kidneys and blood as well as to the central and peripheral nervous systems. Even some current recycling activities can pose a risk of injury to death. Recycling of some valuable elements contained in e-waste such as copper and gold however these are often extracted using fairly primitive methods such as burning cables to remove the plastic and extract the copper. These methods expose workers to toxic fumes according to the WHO several organizations have highlighted the need for interventions in the field of e-waste. A lot of organizations target children as they are the most vulnerable to harm from exposure from e-waste as children are still growing harmful substances that can affect their development to a greater extent so what can you do to help combat e-waste. You can sell or donate your old electronics you can maintain electronics properly so they last longer you can recycle and dispose of e-waste properly before buying a new electronic device. Consider reusing an old one you can store data online to clear storage space and help your electronics last longer. You can buy energy star-rated electronics there is good reason to follow these few simple rules by recycling 1 million-plus cell phones more than 35 thousand pounds of copper 33, seven hundred plus pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold can be recovered.

That material is not only worth money but recovery will also help to reduce the amount of mining necessary but why is it so hard to follow these rules because nowadays electronics are made to be replaced it's called “planned obsolescence” take for example how Apple's latest operating system made extensive use of haptic features that required the latest iPhone and so forth. These kinds of features are very common in today's electronics and so you are forced to replace them and one has to wonder what happens to the old appliances? Can they be fully recycled now that parts of them that are no longer needed? This situation is further aggravated by the economics of gadgets very often it is cheaper to buy something new than to fix something old and so we find ourselves with two unfortunate situations the first is the dangerous increase in mining activities for procurement for the materials needed for the production of gadgets and the second is large amounts of electronics in landfills leaking toxicity. And it is sad to know that this waste could easily be reduced by reuse, repair or resale according to the researches. The whole idea of pushing consumers to buy products quickly by making older ones obsolete and is causing havoc on our planet. It's a complicated issue that requires a complex solution one such solution would be to require electronic sellers to provide buy-backs and return systems for used equipment export limits could also be introduced where the quantity exported has to equal to that reused or recycled. There are plenty of resolutions that can be conceived if we just put our hearts into it and for the sake of our environment.