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Pictures: India's Poor Risk Health to Mine Electronic "E-Waste"

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Nigeria has become an e-waste dumpsite for Europe, US and Asia

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Olusosum dump site, Lagos. Goverment run by the agency Lagos Waste Management Authority ( LAWMA ). One of 6 sites taking in general waste from all over Lagos. E-waste is not allowed on site, but some does appear from the gerneral waste collected all over Lagos. (Getty Images)

It's a towering mountain of waste that greets the eyes as cars zip by on nearby highways and head into the central area of Lagos.

Formerly Nigeria's capital city, this commercial nerve centre is one of Africa's fastest growing economies and is its most populated urban centre, with an estimated 21 million residents. But for all of Lagos' appeal, the megacity is drowning in rubbish. It is mostly plastic waste, which threatens the environment in no small measure. Yet, growing piles of another kind of waste could prove to be far more dangerous.

Overwhelming amounts of electronic waste are piling up in landfills across the port city. Also referred to as Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) or simply e-waste, it involves discarded items that have power or battery supplies. Old electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) such as computers, phones, printers, televisions and refrigerators, commonly end up as e-waste.

As demand for new technology grows nationwide, and Lagos's tech scene expands, so does the problem of mounting levels of e-waste, and the dilemma of recycling it. Although it states otherwise on its website, the Lagos Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) does not, in practice, specially treat e-waste by collecting and sorting it before it arrives at dumpsites.

A labourer is resting amongst TVs which have all come from the UK. Alaba International Market is one of the largest markets for electronic goods in West Africa. New and old - and a lot of non-working electronic goods such as TVs and computers come in to the market via Lagos harbour from the US, Western Europe and China. (Getty Images)

E-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste in the world. But globally, the eco-friendly recycling of e-waste is optimally low: more than half of almost 50 million metric tonnes of e-waste generated worldwide ends up in landfills or is illegally transported, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme.

As trendier technologies emerge, the lifespans of consumer electronics are getting even shorter, worsening the issue. The world is currently generating e-waste faster than it can be recycled or repurposed. Developed nations are responsible for more than half of that. In 2014, the United States alone generated 11 million metric tonnes of e-waste, 80 percent of which was exported to poorer countries where they are either sold for re-use, mined for raw materials or abandoned in landfills.

African countries like Nigeria bear the brunt: An estimated 500 containers, each carrying about 500,000 used computers and other electronic equipment, enter the country's ports every month from the United States, Europe and Asia.

A ready market for used EEE encourages the importation, 80 million Nigerians live on less than $2 a day, yet more than 90 million use internet enabled-gadgets.

"Most people will buy used phones and computers rather than spend all their money on new ones," says Bello Ibrahim, a small-scale gadget trader and repairer based in Lagos. (Shola Lawal / TRTWorld)

"Most people will buy used phones and computers rather than spend all their money on new ones," says Bello Ibrahim, a small-scale gadget trader and repairer based in Lagos. It's a market that yields quick returns he says, perhaps more so than selling only brand new products.

Big EEE sellers often have both new and fairly-used options available for their customers. Ibrahim, 28, works out of a small space in Computer Village, the largest information technology (IT) market in West Africa and confirms that most of the businesses here trade in used EEE.

Around 18,300 metric tonnes of used EEE arrive Lagos in shipping containers annually, originating mainly from Germany, the UK and Belgium, according to a United Nations-funded study. The United States contributes some 20 percent to the EEE importation figures. Apart from computers and phones, the e-waste also include air conditioners and LCD TVs, which contain mercury.

However, more than half of used EEE imported to the country is near end of life or completely damaged. European countries shipped up to 60,000 metric tonnes of used EEE to Nigeria in 2016 alone and almost a third of these products were unuseable. It is illegal to import end-of-life EEE, which is basically e-waste, into the country according to national laws, but weak testing systems at Lagos ports mean smugglers can sneak their consignments in.

A large percentage of used EEE shipped into Lagos finds its way to Computer Village. Located in Ikeja, central Lagos, the IT market is the main destination for thousands of Lagosians who troop here to buy used phones and laptops or to repair old ones. E-waste is generated on a large scale daily.

But Lagos lacks an e-waste collection process, so Ibrahim, the phone trader, and other business owners here dispose of their bad gadgets by selling them off to scavengers in the city.

They come every morning, Ibrahim tells TRT World, and cart away loads of old computers, printers and phones in exchange for some money. Ibrahim is not sure what they use the old equipment for but is fairly certain they resell the parts to manufacturers.

In reality, the e-waste from Computer Village and all over Lagos ends up in three landfills scattered around the city.

One of them is Olusosun, the biggest dumpsite in Africa, measuring up to 42.7 hectares and sitting right in the heart of Lagos. It is the sky-high heap of waste that most people notice upon entering the city centre. Although e-waste statistics from Lagos are unavailable, the dumpsite alone receives up to 10,000 metric tonnes of garbage daily according to LAWMA. A fair amount of it is e-waste, workers here tell TRT World.

Shamsudeen Muraino, 50, has worked at Olusosun, the biggest dumpsite in Africa, as a scavenger for over a decade. (Shola Lawal / TRTWorld)

Shamsudeen Muraino, 50, has worked here as a scavenger for over a decade. The waste here is never sorted, Muraino confirms, and both plastic and e-waste are handled in the same manner. Every day, Muraino and a hundred others dig through the piles of waste deposited at Olusosun with bare hands. More companies buy plastic waste, but metal parts and old computers prove valuable too, the scrap worker says.

Often, some of the equipment needs some repair work. But when they are totally damaged, they are burned and broken apart to be mined for precious metals like gold: A metric tonne of electronic scrap from used computers contains more gold than can be extracted from 17 tonnes of gold ore, according to the Environmental Justice Atlas.

Cables and wires are useful too, Muraino says. Thousands of bundles of wires are burnt every day to get to the copper. All of which is then sold to manufacturers to make new bundles. It's the only work Muraino knows, and he doesn't plan on retiring soon.

Muraino and his colleagues are unaware of how dangerous their work is. The men tear apart the burned gadgets with crude tools and then remove their treasure with bare hands. This dismantling process releases harmful metals like lead and mercury - heavily present in e-waste - into their systems, the soil and surrounding water bodies too, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The burning activity also releases toxic fumes into the air, affecting the scavengers and residents in the area. Burning radioactive material has already proven devastating for Muraino and his colleagues once.

Last March, Olusosun was engulfed in a massive fire that raged for weeks, sending blankets of soot over the area. Muraino and hundreds of other scavengers, who had built tented living quarters at the dumpsite, had their homes razed. Residents in the area had to deal with dark clouds for weeks and Lagos waste authorities were forced to shut down operations in the site temporarily.

The fire only contributed to an already heavily polluted ecosystem. Underground water around the Olusosun dump site has been studied and found to be heavily concentrated in lead levels, above the recommended standards for drinking water by Nigeria's standards organisation. Exposure to toxic e-waste substances has been linked to thyroid dysfunction and spontaneous abortions in pregnant women. Long-term results include DNA damage. Children are most vulnerable according to the WHO, with exposure causing irreversible damage to their central nervous, immune, reproductive and digestive systems.

Scavengers at work in Olusosun. (Shola Lawal / TRTWorld)

Yet, importing e-waste continues to be a lucrative business in Nigeria, despite the West African giant's ratification of the Basel Convention - an international framework regulating the global movement of hazardous waste - 24 years ago.

At a national level, the National Environmental Standards and Regulation Agency (NESREA) is making efforts to tackle the e-waste problem by enforcing a number of laws and policies regulating the importation of used EEE. The National Environment Act of 2011, for example, stipulates a life term for persons who carry or generate hazardous waste. The organisation is working with Interpol, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and sister agencies to apprehend e-waste importers.

But there has been little progress. Containers carrying vehicles filled with e-waste - a trick employed to mislead port officials since importing vehicles is legal - continue to dock in Lagos from the US, China and Europe, according to the Global E-waste Monitor.

Lagos is unequipped to handle the burden: Although e-waste recycling businesses are springing up in Nigeria, it remains largely unregulated and in the informal sector, managed by untrained and unprotected scavengers like Muraino.

"People are not aware that there are hazardous elements in their e-waste," says Belinda Osarugue Osayemwen, an official at Hinckley Group, the first e-waste recycling company to operate in Lagos. Although the company has been operating for over two years, it faces serious competition from scavengers who buy off instead of simply collecting e-waste, a model that is unsustainable for recyclers.

"Those guys give (clients) a higher value than what a formal recycler will ever give because they are not incurring any cost," explains Osayemwen.

Rising levels of internally generated e-waste, as well as a lackadaisical attitude towards recycling in general, adds to the burden. Nigeria generates 1.1 million metric tonnes of e-waste annnually (imported e-waste included) and although there are no numbers to indicate how much is being recycled, all evidence suggests that very little is.

E-waste dumping is not new or limited to Nigeria. In 1988, Italy shipped 18,000 barrels of toxic waste marked to a village in Delta State. In 2016, an explosive investigation showed that GPS-tracked e-waste dropped off at American recycling companies ended up in Kenya. Every year, Ghana groans under the weight of 40,000 metric tonnes of imported e-waste.

It will only get worse: the International Telecommunications Union estimates that 52 million metric tonnes of e-waste will be generated globally by 2021; a good percentage will be from the global West, and only 20 per cent will be properly recycled.

Environmental experts are urging the Nigerian government to ratify the Bamako Treaty, a continental framework which aims to place an outright ban on the importation of hazardous waste.

Many agree that tighter law enforcement is needed at the ports to stop e-waste from coming in. An outright ban on used EEE would be too harsh and would put "most of us out of business", Ibrahim says, besides worsening already bad employment figures in the country.

"In developed climes, you'd have an extended producer responsibility (EPR) system, where producers take responsibility for the recycling and processing of the equipment," says Osayemwen of Hinckley. "We don't have that structure here. It's every man for himself."

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Nigeria has become an e-waste dumpsite for Europe, US and Asia

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It's a towering mountain of waste that greets the eyes as cars zip by on nearby highways and head into the central area of Lagos. Formerly Nigeria's capital city, this commercial nerve centre is one of Africa's fastest growing economies and is its most populated urban centre, with an estimated 21 million residents.

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It's close to midnight on a Sunday and the skies of Lagos hang dark over the glittering lights of the city's 17.5 million residents. One of those lights is small fire in a field in Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State, where 24-year-old John stands, tossing cables into the flames.

"I've been coming to this place for almost six years now, I like it because when I am here nobody disturbs me," John says. He is one of the hundreds of informal 'pickers' who make a living scavenging saleable materials from the Odo-Iyalaro scrapyard, home to a thriving informal market for electronic waste. It's the end of the weekend and he is burning plastic cables to access the copper wires at their core. The practice is illegal, but John is confident that the police won't check the yard today, giving him precious time to build a store of metals he will sell the following morning.

Nigerian law prohibits burning plastic cables, as well as acid leaching and other common methods used by John and his fellow pickers to reclaim valuable metals from discarded electronics. But minimal enforcement and a low awareness of the risks they are running means most pickers continue to regularly expose themselves to toxins that cause respiratory and dermatological problems, eye infections, neurodevelopment al issues, and, ultimately, shorter lives.

Pickers dismantle appliances by hand at Odo-Iyalaro to extract salable components. Photo by Irene Galan / United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Restricted but on the rise
While international agreements like the Basel Convention prohibit the import of hazardous waste, unscrupulous importers and a porous customs system mean Nigeria now ranks alongside Ghana as one of the world's leading destinations for electronic waste. The country receives 71,000 tonnes of used consumer goods through the two main ports in Lagos from the European Union and other more industrialized economies every year.

"Some of the e-waste from abroad is comprised of cathode-ray TVs, which contain lead, as well as refrigerators and air conditioners containing hydrochlorofluorocarbons, making it a threat to those who are dismantling and dealing with the products," the UNEP Programme's Eloise Touni says. Plastic components, including hard casings and cables, also contain persistent organic pollutants used as flame retardants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers(PBDE). These were banned by the Stockholm Convention due to their long-lasting global impacts and are regularly detected in ecosystems and people all over the world, including in Arctic wildernesses and their traditional inhabitants.

In partnership with Nigeria's National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, Touni coordinates the Global Environment Facility-funded Circular Economy Approaches for the Electronics Sector in Nigeria project, an ambitious three-year, multi-million-dollar initiative aiming to see the nation adopt a financially self-sustaining circular economy approach for electronics.

Copper extracted from cables and appliances is amongst the most valuable finds for pickers, selling at over US$3 per kg. Photo by Irene Galan / UNEP

The e-waste journey
"Nigeria is an attractive destination for waste exporters, partly due to the limited enforcement of import restrictions and other regulations," Touni says.

Often hidden or falsely declared, electronic waste enters Nigeria through two ports in Lagos and over land routes from neighbouring countries before finding its way to sites like Olusosun, Nigeria's largest dumpsite. With 100 acres filled every day by 10,000 tonnes of rubbish, including e-waste, Olusosun is a scavengers' heaven, busy with pickers searching for waste they can break down and sell on the informal market.

Just a few kilometres away at Odo-Iyalaro, pickers can sell 1 kg of aluminium for 220 naira (US$0.61), 1 kg of brass for 700 naira (US$1.94), and 1 kg of copper for 1,500 naira (US$4.17).

"I'd like to do something else... but I can feed my family with this job," says mother-of-four Malaiah, as she crouches over an old computer, breaking it down with a small hammer to extract as much metal as possible. "I get 10,000 naira a week. My children are all in school, my eldest is in university."

Touni says that as pickers work on an individual basis, scavenging directly from dumpsites, they can undercut the limited formal recycling operations that exist. But their competitive edge comes at a personal cost-frequent injury and daily exposure to poisonous leakages and emissions from the waste they break down by hand.

Alongside the raw materials they sell at markets like Odo-Iyalaro, pickers sell more valuable components to informal recyclers, whose shops are located in Computer Village, the largest technology accessories market in Africa. In sweltering rooms above its chaotic streets, engineers repair computers, mobile phones and screens using the parts provided by the pickers, before selling them on to both local clients and foreign markets.

"I buy loads at 2,000 or 3,000 naira per kilogram. I can't tell you how much I sell them for, but I give them to somebody that takes them to Germany, Turkey and China," one of the shop owners says.

Employees at Hinckley dismantle discarded laptops. Photo by Irene Galan / UNEP

The costs of ethical recycling
Thanks to their overall low costs, informal recyclers play a competitive role in the international market, where scrap and component buyers often choose them over their registered competitors.

"The informal sector doesn't incur costs in tax, power, labour costs or incorporation legalities. It will always be the highest bidder for waste to process," says Adrian Clews, Chief Executive Officer of Hinckley Recycling, one of Nigeria's two registered electronic waste recyclers and a partner with the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency on the Circular Economy project.

In collaboration with Verde Impacto, a recovery and recycling company specialized in post-consumer recycling, Hinckley has started to incorporate informal pickers into their business, providing them with training and protective equipment, alongside health services, insurance cover and bank accounts. However, the company struggles to offer competitive rates to beat what pickers can make on the informal market.

"The company can pay the same as the informal market only if additional funding is available," says Clews, "but without extended producer responsibility legislation we are fighting a lost battle."

Malaiah supports her family of four by collecting and breaking down electronic waste at Odo-Iyalaro. Photo by Irene Galan / UNEP

Taking responsibility for waste
Extended producer responsibility legislation tasks manufacturers with responsibility for their products throughout their lifecycle-emphasizing extended use, waste prevention, recycling and recovery-with the aim of minimizing the impact of consumer electronics on human health and the environment.

In Nigeria, the application of existing extended producer responsibility legislation has so far been hampered by the complexity of the local market and the lack of an industry-wide body to support increased formalization of the recycling sector.

Raising awareness on the impacts of hazardous e-waste and improving the implementation of Nigeria's extended producer responsibility legislation are amongst the first steps being taken by the Nigerian government and partners under the Circular Economy Approaches for the Electronics Sector project. The project will also contribute to the development of best cases and approaches for implementing the Circular Economy in Nigeria and Africa. The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency Director General Aliyu Jauro is confident the initiative will "sensitize workers, embrace the best practices, support the private sector and lead Nigeria on its way to a circular economy approach in the e-waste sector."

Walking below the city's starless sky, John has only heard about the changes ahead for the waste sector. Being a picker isn't a choice-he aims to become a recycling engineer. Tonight, the air is too polluted to make a wish on a falling star. But, with change in the wind for Nigeria's e-waste recyclers, in three years, the Lagos skies will be a little clearer, and John might just have the chance to make his dream come true.
To learn more about the Circular Economy Approaches for the Electronics Sector in Nigeria project or UNEP's work in Chemicals & Waste, contact Eloise Touni.

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Dark skies, bright future: overcoming Nigeria's e-waste epidemic

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It's close to midnight on a Sunday and the skies of Lagos hang dark over the glittering lights of the city's 17.5 million residents. One of those lights is small fire in a field in Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State, where 24-year-old John stands, tossing cables into the flames.

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Electronic waste is recycled in appalling conditions in India

The world produces 50 million tonnes of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) per year, according to a recent UN report, but only 20% is formally recycled. Much of the rest ends up in landfill, or is recycled informally in developing nations.

Read more: Does not compute: Australia is still miles behind in recycling electronic products

India generates more than two million tonnes of e-waste annually, and also imports undisclosed amounts of e-waste from other countries from around the world - including Australia.

We visited India to examine these conditions ourselves, and reveal some of the devastating effects e-waste recycling has on workers' health and the environment.

Alankrita Soni, Author provided

Indian e-waste

More than 95% of India's e-waste is processed by a widely distributed network of informal workers of waste pickers. They are often referred to as "kabadiwalas" or "raddiwalas" who collect, dismantle and recycle it and operate illegally outside of any regulated or formal organisational system. Little has changed since India introduced e-waste management legislation in 2016.

We visited e-waste dismantlers on Delhi's outskirts. Along the narrow and congested alleyways in Seelampur we encountered hundreds of people, including children, handling different types of electronic waste including discarded televisions, air-conditioners, computers, phones and batteries.

Alankrita Soni, Author provided

Squatting outside shop units they were busy dismantling these products and sorting circuit boards, capacitors, metals and other components (without proper tools, gloves, face masks or suitable footwear) to be sold on to other traders for further recycling.

Local people said the waste comes here from all over India. "You should have come here early morning, when the trucks arrive with all the waste," a trolley driver told us.

Seelampur is the largest e-waste dismantling market in India. Each day e-waste is dumped by the truckload for thousands of workers using crude methods to extract reusable components and precious metals such as copper, tin, silver, gold, titanium and palladium. The process involves acid burning and open incineration, creating toxic gases with severe health and environmental consequences.

Read more: Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong

Workers come to Seelampur desperate for work. We learned that workers can earn between 200 and 800 rupees (A$4-16) per day. Women and children are paid the least; men who are involved with the extraction of metals and acid-leeching are paid more.

Income is linked to how much workers dismantle and the quality of what is extracted. They work 8-10 hours per day, without any apparent regard for their own well-being. We were told by a local government representative that respiratory problems are reportedly common among those working in these filthy smoke-filled conditions.

Alankrita Soni

Delhi has significant air and water pollution problems that authorities struggle to mitigate. We were surprised to learn that the recycling community does not like to discuss "pollution", so as not to raise concerns that could result in a police raid. When we asked about the burning of e-waste, they denied it takes place. Locals were reluctant to talk to us in any detail. They live in fear that their trade will be shut down during one of the regular police patrols in an attempt to curb Delhi's critical air and water problems.

Read more: As another smog season looms, India must act soon to keep Delhi from gasping

As a result of this fear, e-waste burning and acid washing are often hidden from view in the outskirts of Delhi and the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, or done at night when there is less risk of a police raid.

Incidentally, while moving around Seelampur we were shocked to see children playing in drains clogged with dumped waste. During the drier months drains can catch fire, often deliberately lit to reduce waste accumulation.

Author provided

After our tour of Seelampur we visited Mandoli, a region near Delhi where we were told e-waste burning takes place. When we arrived and asked about e-waste recycling we were initially met with denials that such places exist. But after some persistence we were directed along narrow, rutted laneways to an industrial area flanked by fortified buildings with large locked metal doors and peephole slots not dissimilar to a prison.

We arranged entry to one of these units. Among the swirling clouds of thick, acrid smoke, four or so women were burning electrical cables over a coal fire to extract copper and other metals. They were reluctant to talk and very cautious with their replies, but they did tell us they were somewhat aware of the health and environmental implications of the work.

We could not stay more than a few minutes in these filthy conditions. As we left we asked an elderly gentleman if people here suffer from asthma or similar conditions. He claimed that deaths due to respiratory problems are common. We also learned that most of these units are illegal and operate at night to avoid detection. Pollution levels are often worse at night and affect the surrounding residential areas and even the prisoners at the nearby Mandoli Jail.

Alankrita Soni, Author provided

We had the luxury of being able to leave after our visit. It is devastating to think of the residents, workers and their children who spend their lives living among this toxic waste and breathing poisonous air.

Field trips such as this help illustrate a tragic paradox of e-waste recycling in developed versus developing nations. In Australia and many other advanced industrialised economies, e-waste collection is low and little is recycled. In India, e-waste collection and recycling rates are remarkably high.

This is all due to informal recyclers, the kabadiwalas or raddiwalas. They are resourceful enough to extract value at every stage of the recycling process, but this comes with a heavy toll to their health and the environment.
This article was co-written by Ms. Alankrita Soni, UNSW Alumni & practising Environmental Architect from India.

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Electronic waste is recycled in appalling conditions in India

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Electronic waste is recycled in appalling conditions in India The world produces 50 million tonnes of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) per year, according to a recent UN report, but only 20% is formally recycled. Much of the rest ends up in landfill, or is recycled informally in developing nations.

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By 2017, all of that year's end-of-life refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, computers, monitors, e-toys and other products with a battery or electrical cord worldwide could fill a line of 40-ton trucks end-to-end on a highway straddling three quarters of the Equator. United Nations University on Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative

"At first, we dealt with record players, radios, VCRs and black-and-white TVs. Later on, CD and DVD players followed. Finally, computers arrived, and we started business with e-waste," explains Mohammed Moinuddin, an e-waste recycler, sitting in his small village near Kolkata in northeast India.

Nearby lie piles of electronics nearly two meters high. Mostly composed of dark green circuit boards, they are haphazardly stacked against the walls of the village of Sangrampur, a small hamlet located 30 miles south of Kolkata and just 25 miles from the Indian Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Among the multicolored piles of plastic and metals, women, young men and children use small hammers and chisels to pick away at the various circuit boards, breaking them down into increasingly smaller pieces, which are then separated and collected together.

"It's all collected from Kolkata and brought here, dismantled and broken down," Moinuddin said. "Since 2010, there has been quite an influx in the electronic market. There is increased supply, increased usage, increased waste production and increased dismantling."

The small operation in this village is all part of a growing informal industry in India, which is expanding as a result of the country's boom in electronic waste.

As a relatively young industry, e-waste recycling occupations are plagued by associated risks that are only now becoming more apparent. Metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic are all present in e-waste. For those workers who spend endless days exposed to dangerous levels of toxic elements with little to no protection while breaking electronics down by hand, the risks are clear.

Globally, an estimated 50 million tons of e-waste are produced annually, with residents of the U.S. and the U.K. generating some of the highest rates worldwide at 30 kg and 22 kg per person, respectively.

"According to recent studies, almost 2.7 million tons of electronic waste are being generated annually in India. That's a huge quantity of waste for a country like India," explained Priti Mahesh, a senior program coordinator for Toxics Link. The Delhi-based NGO focuses on toxic waste issues in India.

Mahesh sees two main sources of the electronic waste that has begun accumulating in India. Although part of the problem stems from increased domestic electronic consumption and subsequent e-waste, the global picture presents a serious threat to the country, she saids. "In the West, treating or processing e-waste is expensive, and smaller countries are running out of landfill space," she explains. "The easiest way for them is to ship it out to a country like India. So, we are faced with this burden of e-waste from developed countries.

"I think the problem is compounded mainly because of the way it's handled in this country," Mahesh continued. "The toxicity is known to everybody, but when [the toxicity] is handled in the informal sector in a bad or improper manner, it leads to a lot of problems not just for the environment but for people's health."

And the burgeoning industry doesn't take place in a vacuum: Electronic recycling centers can be found close to people's homes. "People who are working in these areas, every day burning these wastes, trying to recover some valuables from this waste, end up endangering their health," Mahesh says. "This work happens within community areas or within residential areas, so that entire families are exposed to the toxic elements."

On the busy streets of Chandni Chowk, in the heart of Kolkata, the streets are thronged with people weaving their way between hundreds of electronics stores.

This is the city's center for electronics goods and among the retail stores offering the latest cellphones, laptops and gadgets are a small army of second hand salesman, mostly operating out of small stalls on the street and tiny rooms squeezed in between the narrow alleyways.

This is where you are likely to find Prosenjit Singh, a 28-year-old secondhand electronics waste dealer who is one of the few operators trying to make the transition from informal to formal, government-approved recycling.

"We are collecting material, by tender position, from many companies like LG and Samsung. After 2008, the companies have told us that new rules have come for electronic items. After that, from 2010, we did not collect any material from those companies. Before we were collecting materials from those companies and selling those parts [such as] PCBs (printed circuit boards), plastics, iron and selling it on to others," he said.

For those like Singh, who hope to make the change from informal to formal, the transition is proving difficult. His business is on hold as he waits to become one of the first informal recyclers in the state of West Bengal to be granted official permission to handle e-waste.

New national regulations introduced by the government in 2008 and 2011 have laid out stringent requirements for those who wish to formalize their recycling business. It's an encouraging sign, but start-up costs of over $15,000 are proving to be prohibitively expensive for most who work in the city's informal sector.

"The informal sector has limited resources and limited capital. There is no support from the government.", explained Singh. After a year and a half of following the application process, he is still waiting for approval.

"Ultimately, we have to clean [up] our nation," lamented Singh. "That is the important thing. When I came into this sector, I didn't know anything. We realized what we are doing to nature and also to people who are working with us. The government has to help all the informal sector formalize. We have to do this for people, to save nature and save the people."

Back in the village of Sangrampur, the sound of hammering and plastics cracking combine with frogs croaking in a nearby pond. The sun pulls itself down over the horizon, as the day draws to an end.

Before the workers can finish however, a small tricycle appears from around the corner of a building. A new batch of computers has arrived for processing.

Hopping off his tricycle, a villager starts unloading his cargo. He hands the circuit boards and wiring off to a small group of waiting children. They carry the electronic goods from the road to their nearby homes where the electronics will be broken down.

It's a familiar site in the village where children, along with their siblings and parents, collectively dismantle and handle the growing piles of waste.

Children are particularly susceptible to exposure to toxic metals, but the long-term effects of this exposure are still to be seen in this community and many others like it across the country. Likewise, the impact of the slow accumulation of toxins in the water and soil, released during the recycling process, is yet to be seen.

As Priti Mahesh of Toxic Links explains, "Over time, the health effects of toxic elements like lead and mercury, which are present in the electronics which people get exposed to, [will] have very long-term health impacts. I think in another 10 years we will see the health problems actually coming to the front and the increased waste is only going to go up. It is the right time to put a stop to it and see that it doesn't increase and impact the health of lots of people who are employed in this area."

As a hammer bears down on another circuit board in Sangrampur, it releases a puff of dust, inevitably laden with toxic elements. The slow poisoning of the local people and environment continues.

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By 2017, all of that year's end-of-life refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, computers, monitors, e-toys and other products with a battery or electrical cord worldwide could fill a line of 40-ton trucks end-to-end on a highway straddling three quarters of the Equator.

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jpeg file only

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investigative video

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Watchdog group tracks what really happens to your ‘recycled’ e-waste

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Older video

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Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia

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youtube video