Earth5R

Creating E-Waste Awareness In Bangalore

According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Report (2015), up to 90% of the world’s electronic waste, worth nearly $19 billion, is illegally traded or dumped each year. Wrong disposal of e-waste not only leaches the soil with hazardous chemicals but also results in loss of precious materials due to the fact that most of it is not recycled.

With a concern after having come across this fact, Kavitha Jain and Sadhna Singh conducted an e-waste awareness drive at Shivajinagar, Bangalore on the 2 September, 2015 to educate the local residents about e-waste and its related aspects.

The team first found out if the residents were aware of e-waste. They continued by explaining what e-waste was and then also made aware the residents about the environmental and health hazards that were imposed due to its wrong disposal. The residents were also made informed that precious materials are wasted when some of the e-waste is wrongly disposed.

The residents were also taught as to how their small steps, like the reuse of selected e-waste, donating obsolete unused cell phones to the needy ones would make a difference. Another method suggested was updating the software rather than purchasing a new gadget, that could help make a great difference.

The residents were glad to learn that certain organisations would collect such waste at their door-step and would also pay them some amounts in return. They made a note of such information which was provided by the Earth5R team.

Their task concluded with asking the residents to spread the same information among their known ones and encouraging and following the right disposal of  e-waste. Thus, creating awareness on e-waste turned out as a helpful and new learning.

-Reported by Kavitha Jain. Edited by Pragya Lodha