What do you do about the E-waste you generate?
@gautaam (159)
Mumbai, India
April 13, 2019 7:12am CST
I am really confused about the e-waste that I use at home. So many batteries, old mobiles, electronic parts, laptop batteries and chargers, TV remote controls etc. I do not want to throw them fearing hazardous material. Also I am unable to find any NGO or organisation which has a e-waste disposable system in Mumbai.
Would like to know your thought on it
5 people like this
6 responses
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
13 Apr 19
It all depends on where you are, it seems. In the UK, many recycling concerns are able to recycle batteries, ink cartridges and so on and they have places in many supermarkets where you can deposit such things. Our recycling centres do their best to see that electronic and plastic waste doesn't go into landfill by providing recycling bins to every household and having assigned places for certain types of waste at every recycling centre.
Sadly, it is not economic to recycle certain types of plastic and some still goes into landfill. I don't know what happens to all of the electronic gadgetry which is discarded. Some, of course, do contain precious metals which are (marginally) worth recovering but most, although they can poison the earth and groundwater for hundreds of years, are just not worth the expense of dealing with safely.
I believe that the economy in India is very different from that in the West. Many people on very low incomes scrape a living by collecting recyclable material from rubbish tips under dangerous and unhealthy conditions and by selling what they find to recycling companies. Although it provides a living (of sorts) to many, it is, of course, far from ideal.
@ptrikha_2 (46951)
• India
13 Apr 19
Even I am yet to find many such organizations. However, you might checkout with Local Nokia stores- if any are still there in your location and check indiamart.com
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
13 Apr 19
Don't you have a junkshop or materials recovery facility near you?
@asfarasiknow (3340)
• Bournemouth, England
13 Apr 19
In the UK the supermarkets have containers to recycle disposable batteries. In my town there are recycling containers in car parks for electrical items but these are of limited size.
@kasmakarim (1932)
• Indonesia
13 Apr 19
In here we just throw it away. I know it's bad but what else can we do? There is no sorting-thing in here.