Greenpeace has now urged computer manufacturers to keep away some highly damaging chemicals from the manufacturing process. Multinational brands like Dell, IBM and HP have actually done it, while Wipro has promised to follow suit.
With the spread of computer awareness becoming a priority for the government in the 11th plan, electronic waste has emerged as a major environmental threat. The government aims to see that the number of persons owning computer systems surges from 18 per 1000 in 2006 to 65 per 1000 by the end of the next plan.
Official statistics say, though India generates 400 tonnes of e-waste every day, there are only two authorised recycling plants in Bangalore and Chennai. Their total  capacity is five tonnes per day.
“The remaining 395 tonnes are recycled in backyard units, where acid bathing as well as open baking and burning are commonplace,”  says Greenpeace India’s Executive Director, G Ananthapadmanabhan.  This not only exposes the workers to massive health risks, but critically damages the environment.
Healthy practices
The solution, the green activists say, lies in adopting healthy practices like “restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS),” which is becoming popular in Europe and Japan. Currently, India does not have any legal system in place for curbing e-waste.
In the last one year, many global brands have begun to adopt the RoHS practice. Those computer manufacturers who resort to this practice, refrain from using  lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium and two brominated flame retardants.
Azim Premji’s Wipro is the first company to launch initiatives for coming out with RoHS compliant products.
It has also announced a policy to phase out poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) and BFR.
“Now, HCL is contemplating adoption of some eco-friendly practices,” says Greenpeace’s Ramapathi Kumar.
The activist on Monday appealed to the government to explore the possibility of adopting the “extended producer responsibility” (EPR) legislation, which is becoming popular in the European Union. He had earlier conducted a demonstration on the ill effects of e-waste in front of the department of information technology.
“Under the proposed legislation,  each producer (of electronic items) should be held responsible for environmental consequences for his/her product in its entire life cycle. This would include the time when the product becomes waste,” said Dr Thomas Lindhqvist from the University of Lund in Sweden.
He has studied the feasibility of applying this legislation in India.
“If green practices are adopted,  the prices of computers can surge, though nobody has carried out studies on what the quantum of price jump would be,” adds Mr Kumar.