E-waste handlers not aware of health hazards

Over 1,000 different substances and chemicals in e-waste may cause acute health problems

Swapnil Rawal

For Nadeem Malik (17) and Danish Malik (13), who have been working at their father’s scrap shop in a dingy bylane in Kurla since they were very young, breaking computer monitors, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), gathering circuit boards, taking out copper from Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) cables is a daily job.

The scrap market in Kurla near the BEST bus depot is one of the biggest scrap markets in the city with a wide-ranging variety of electronic waste or e-waste. Scrap shops here deal in scraps of personal computer, washing machines, music systems etc.

The two brothers have been doing their job without realising the serious health hazards they face by constant exposure to such harmful chemical and heavy metal. “I am doing this since I was eight years old,” said Nadeem, who was hammering an electronic part which eventually fetched him a small piece of magnet.

E-waste contains over 1,000 different substances and chemicals, many of which are toxic and likely to create environmental or health hazards if not handled properly. The monitors that the brothers break contains lead along with other heavy metals. According to experts, when broken, the glass releases hazardous dust, which can damage the nervous system. Various toxic and heavy metals like, cadmium, mercury Hexavalent Chromium/Chromium VI, Brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Barium, Beryllium, Lithium, etc are found in various electrical appliances, which are being handled in an environmentally unsound fashion at a number of scrap markets across the city.

Danish and Nadeem do not go to school and live in the shop with their father Sharif Malik. When asked whether they are aware of any health problems their work causes, Nadeem said, “We don’t know about any harmful effects of working like this...we have been doing this for years now and it is good business.”

Danish, who was plucking out integrated circuits from the circuit boards, said, “The scrap comes here every two-three days and we sort out copper, plastic, magnet etc. If we get a computer monitor which is not repairable, we break it and take out the important parts. Not only computer parts, we also break and sort out components of television sets, washing machines etc.”

When asked how they remove copper from a PVC cable, Nadeem responded, “We burn the plastic and coil the copper wire.” When plastics are burned Dioxin is released in the atmosphere.

According to a recently released report, Mumbai generates 19,000 tonnes of e-waste annually.


* Source: Indian Express, dated - Monday, February 26,2007.*