International E-waste day

E-waste, a short form for the word Electronic waste, electronic devices and appliances that have reached their end of use and are disposed. Electronic waste ranges from television set, cell phones, sound devices, memory card chip, headphones, earpiece, pressing iron, hair dryer, microwave, oven, other electronic kitchen appliances and any other electronic device we use in our day to day activities.

Electronics contain both useful and harmful materials such as gold, copper, lead, mercury, cadmium, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and many more.

Electronic waste can be very toxic due to the persistence of their waste product in all the Environmental mediums(soil, water and air), elements such as lead and mercury can leach into soil and water bodies causing harm to aquatics, mercury poisoning can cause brain damage in humans, lead in the other can can cause cancer, retarded growth in children and genetic mutation, similarly the release of such substance in gaseous form during the process of unregulated recycling of E-waste can be damaging to the atmosphere.

Valuable materials such as copper and gold are also gotten from electronics by extracting them at point of recycling, such materials can be sold as raw materials to companies to be used in the production of new materials, recycling and extraction of these materials should be done in a sustainable manner and under strict regulations in other to regulate the amount of toxic gases to be released into the atmosphere.

E-waste is considered the "fastest-growing waste stream in the world"with 44.7 million tonnes generated in 2016- equivalent to 4500 Eiffel towers.In 2018, an estimated 50 million tonnes of e-waste was reported, thus the name 'tsunami of e-waste' given by the UN] Its value is at least $62.5 billion annually.

International E-Waste Day is held on 14 October every year since it is development in 2018 by the WEEE forum, it is an opportunity to reflect on the impacts of e-waste and the necessary actions to enhance circularity for e-proe-product, raise the public profile of waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling and encourage consumers to recycle.

Instead of throwing away you old and outdated cellphone, kitchen appliances or computers you can simply donate it to people in need, take it to a regulated recycling center or rather trade it with something you need from electronics vendors and E-waste scavengers.

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