Electronic waste (or e-waste) is a growing menace to the environment and ecosystem, with hazardous effects on air, water, and soil quality. E-waste also poses significant health risks to the people employed in e-waste dismantling and processing facilities. This has been a common agenda item thrown around and debated on discussion forums (year round), while another World Environment Day comes knocking on the door.<\/p>
So, let’s take a look at some hard reality via the following statistics that shed light on the e-waste matter and help shape a concrete perspective on its implications.<\/p>
The Global E-Waste Monitor report informs that global yearly e-waste generation is expected to cross 50 Million Mt by 2020, with an annual growth rate of 3–4%. In a per capita viewpoint, e-waste generation per inhabitant would reach around 7kg per person by 2020. What’s even more startling is the dismal state of formal e-waste management processes and policies— the report apprises that 76% of the global e-waste had remained undocumented in 2016, meaning, it was likely dumped, traded or recycled under inferior conditions!<\/p>
So, obviously, e-waste today stands as a critical challenge for societies, businesses, and policymakers, which is growing by the day.<\/p>
The following initiatives – as part of the overarching e-waste management strategy – can help contain (and possibly diminish) the problem of e-waste:<\/p>
1. Reduce e-waste generation:<\/strong><\/p> Individuals and organizations can help reduce e-waste generation by choosing to reuse their legacy devices (largely IT equipment) by way of – exchange, resell, donation, reallocation, etc. – instead of dumping them as e-waste. <\/p> 2. Improve e-waste management:<\/strong><\/p> Drawing and implementing a stronger policy framework can help drive a more effective management of e-waste, especially in the developing regions\/countries of the world. This largely includes safe e-waste processing and disposal practices, transboundary movement of e-waste, accountability across the chain of e-waste custody, trace back mechanisms, and documenting e-waste, etc.<\/p> The rapid pace of e-waste generation can be arrested at the consumption level itself, provided individual users and organizations adopt a ‘reuse more’ mindset with regard to usage of electronic devices. <\/p> The following are a few scenarios that contribute to e-waste generation at the consumption level—<\/p> The number of instances for such e-waste generation scenarios can be reduced by provisioning a mechanism that could allow to reuse the devices. <\/p> Data erasure software<\/a><\/strong> enables this mechanism— it securely erases storage media such as hard drives, PCs, solid state drives, servers and rack-mounted devices. The erased devices can be reused by way of – exchange, resell, donation, reallocation, etc., without being necessarily pushed into the e-waste generation stream.<\/p> Data erasure software such as BitRaser <\/a>offer great utility and convenience for erasing storage media, with an assurance that the erased media is safe for reuse, exchange, donation etc. without any risk of data leakage. <\/p>\n