By the end of 2011, an estimated one third of the world’s population was online. In Pakistan alone, 18.5million people use the Internet while another 107.8 million subscribe to various cellular networks. Statistics aside, it is hard to imagine life without communication technology.

According to a statement issued by the United Nations in 2011, there are over six billion mobile subscriptions in the world (one billion of these are in China alone) compared to a global population of seven billion. That’s a lot of mobile phones.

This global demand for electronic goods keeps growing, putting immense pressure on already scarce resources. Most Information Communication Technology (ICTs) such as computers and mobile phones are designed to have a lifespan of two years after which they have to be disposed of. Considering the numbers involved, this adds up to a lot of e-waste.

Around 20-50m tons of e-waste is generated every year and only 20pc of it is formally recycled. The rest is dumped in countries (like Pakistan) where there are little or no means of recycling e-waste properly.

Where does it come from and where does it go?

According to the report “E-waste imports and informal recycling in Pakistan: A multidimensional governance challenge” by The Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, tons of e-waste is entering the country through the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and India — and these are only some of the routes through which e-waste arrives.

Pakistan is not only a signatory to the Basel Convention on the Control of trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste and their disposal, which forbids the movement of electronic waste from developed countries to developing countries, but is also a party to various other environment related conventions that are violated by the import and informal disposal of e-waste. These include the Rotterdam Convention on Prior informed consent for certain hazardous chemicals, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol on Ozone depleting substances. None of this stops Pakistan from becoming the third largest importer of e-waste in the world, according to the above-mentioned report.

It goes on to mention that electronic waste enters Pakistan camouflaged as second-hand equipment (the equipment is often crushed to fit as much as possible into containers), donations and Afghan imports. Pakistan is the transit route through which e-waste imported by Afghanistan passes through, but most of the waste is sold in Pakistan before it reaches the Afghan border, so all of this tonnage enters the country and still manages to remain officially ‘under the radar’.

Why Pakistan?

Handling e-waste is becoming an increasingly lucrative industry in Pakistan. Equipment is graded for quality (A1 to D grade or scrap) with the best sold at a profit in local markets. The other main reason for Pakistan becoming a major dumping site for e-waste is cheap labour. The workers toiling away at dump sites come from extremely poor backgrounds and usually earn less than $2 a day. Compare that to the cost of $20 it takes to dispose off one’s computer in a developed country and you have a 100pc return on your investment. Handling e-waste is easy income for these workers albeit at the cost of their health. They aim for basic survival and concerns regarding health and sanitation take a backseat. Another reason for Pakistan being a prime site for e-waste is negligence and lack of interest by health and environment agencies.

How mishandling e-waste affects the environment E-waste contains precious metals such as copper and gold, the recycling of which includes manual extraction of copper wires from equipment, burning of cables and dipping of microchips and the motherboard in acid, known as an ‘acid bath’. This melts away its components leaving only precious metals behind, releasing toxins into the air, the earth and whatever is left behind is usually disposed off into the nearest river or water body, thereby causing serious environmental damage.

Chemicals washed off wires, acid, ink toners and other refuse seep into water bodies, accumulate with other toxins and eventually make their way into the sea; seriously affecting aquatic life … and those who eventually consume it.

In Karachi, the largest e-waste dumpsites are in Sher Shah and Lyari and so the waste from ‘recycling’ e-waste goes into the Lyari River that passes through mangroves. Recent reports point towards a heavy metal concentration in mangrove waters even though mangroves are natural filters of pollutants in the water, but there is a certain tolerance level that should not be exceeded.

More than skin deep

Most of the workers are aged between eight and 50 plus, and since they do not use any protective gear (suits, gloves or masks) when handling electronic items, they expose themselves to harmful chemicals by breathing them in as well as through their skin.

Electronic waste contains heavy metals, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), flame-retardants and harmful chemicals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. According to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) titled The global impact of e-waste: addressing the challenge even a small amount of exposure to the latter chemicals can cause severe neurological damage in pregnant women and children. Long-term exposure to lead also causes blood pressure in middle-aged men. These are just some of the health hazards that these workers expose themselves to. The workers either seem unaware of these hazards or believe that they have built immunity to them.

Authorities may wave off the industry by claiming that it operates ‘informally’, but it exists unregulated with all its dire repercussions and without checks and balances.

While neighbouring countries have introduced policies to clamp down e-waste entering their countries, the global level of this waste continues to increase — we can be sure that this industry isn’t going to die down anytime soon in Pakistan. It needs regulation and standard practises before irreparable and irreversible damage is done to both the environment and to the people working within these yards. M. Syed