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| Leave e waste in the open and they will be there forever |
What would you do when the broken refrigerator, microwave oven, two-in-one radio, computer monitors and printer cartridges you no longer need, begin to pile up in your back yard? If you don’t know, you’re not alone.
Especially now; with the World Cup fever subsiding, with the annual “spring cleaning” in preparation for the Sinhala Tamil New year about to begin. Today is surely the time to start worrying about what you should do with the old Tv you removed from the coveted place in the Tv room to make way for the new 3D LED Tv. Could you hand it down to your cousin or the old lady three doors away or the guy who comes to read the water-meter? But they own tvs too. What then? Store it in the “passage” between your wall and your neigbours wall?
Read moreHow can you, unless you remove the older residents already “living” there, whose roots date back to the 1980s, the broken refrigerator, washing machine, the printer, the monitor and the microwave oven? Make space for the tv, which after all is simply out dated and has not yet reached the last stages of life, by handing over the other already ‘dead’ e waste to the Municipal workers who come to collect the garbage every other day with your brightest smile and the suggestion “do whatever you like with these” (kamathi deyak karanna). Slap your hands. Problem solved. Until the next World Cup. Until it is time to buy another, newer, bigger tv.
Faster, better, cheaper. The mantra of the High Tech revolution. Great for the manufacturers, the retailers, and probably the economy too. But, (hold your breath) DISASTEROUS for the environment.
Enter the “dark side” of the electronic revolution. Once the Municipal workers examine your discarded electronic items and decide they are not worth lugging home to be repaired and reused, the “dead loot” will be thrown into the garbage dump, where they will silently take revenge for being ill treated, by leaking toxic substances like mercury, lead and chromium into the environment.
In other words, will that old tv you threw into the garbage dump contribute to global warming? Will buying the newest mobile phone in town, and discarding the old one, poison the Mahaweli? Yes, it can happen. Dr.S.R.D Rosa, Head, Department of Physics, University of Colombo says toxic substances that are commonly used in electronic equipment like silicon, lead and lithium will cause environmental pollution. “Unlike paper the solid material used in electronic products do not degenerate. They are there forever” warns Dr. Rosa. “In another five or six years e waste is going to become a major problem endangering us and other organisms.”
 Let recycling be the rule |
So, what do you do? Say no to the familiar cycle of buying a new gadget that rapidly becomes outdated, requiring you to buy a new gadget (if you have the money) and dispose of the old one (as you already know, really hard). After all, even though all these electronic items are alluring and wonderful, I confess, as I type this story on my much-loved, battered, notebook I cannot imagine a life without one, they contain heavy metals, toxic chemicals and flame retardants which are harmful to Mother Earth. The only solution then, is to heed the mantra of environmentalists all over the world, “use it up, make it do, wear it out or do without”.
So, if your basic mobile phone still works, don’t toss it out for a more complex (and fragile) one that has a camera and a radio. If your old laptop still works, keep using it even though it is a bit slower than the newest ones. If your old TV still works, stick to it till it breaths its last before thinking of the one as flat as a pancake, and as wide as the sky.
Those are resolutions for the New Year coming up in the week ahead. What about the e waste you have already collected? (You may breath now). The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) has the answer. Heave all those e waste, the irons, the phones, the washing machines cluttering the cupboards, shelves and the out of sight, out of mind region under your bed, to the Shalika Grounds, Narahenpita, right now. The officers of the CEA are waiting there to take back all your unwanted electronic waste (from 8.30am to 12.30pm).
“This marks the beginning of many such electronic waste management days which will take place in other parts of the country too in the near future” says Sarojini Jayasekara, Acting Director, Waste Management, CEA. The e-waste collected today will be handed over to an exporter. “This is our only option. As we cannot recycle them here we export our e waste to China, Korea and Germany” explains Jayasekara. “The only e waste which cannot as yet be collected from the consumers are CSL and florescent bulbs. But before the year ends we will remedy this situation as well.”
 Never let your e waste join the municipal solid waste stream |
If it is too late now to make it to the Shalika Grounds, Jayasekara has another alternative. You can head towards the nearest Singer Sri Lanka showroom with your broken, unwanted electronic equipment. “We collect every kind of home electronic appliance regardless of the brand” assures a spokesperson at the Singer head office. “From old irons to washing machines to refrigerators. We keep them in our outlets till Green Link, the company that exports e waste comes to collect them from us”.
Among the other high-tech companies who are working with the CEA to help reduce the harmful effects of e waste on the environment are Metropolitan Group who is collaborating with the CEA to hold the first electronic waste management day today, and Dialog.
According to Darshana Abayasingha, Manager Corporate Communications, Dialog’s mobile waste (m-waste) take-back initiative was launched way back in 2007 and now has 105 collection centers island-wide.
When asked if this means mobile phone users can return their old phones for recycling Abayasingha says “Yes we do recycle old mobile phones. You can hand-over old units to Dialog waste collection centres. There are collection boxes situated at all Dialog Arcades and Customer Service Centres.”
Now you know. Help all those endangered creatures survive. Let air, land and sea remain poison free. Do the best eco chic thing possible. Instead of sending all your electronic waste to the garbage dump return them to the e waste collection centre near your home. Think of it as your New Year gift to Mother Nature.
Daily News - Aditha Dissanayake
