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ABSTRACT
Proper management of used electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), known as e-waste, is causing a significant challenge for many countries around the world. United Nations estimate that the world generated 53 million metric tonnes (Mt) of e-waste in 2019, mostly from the Asian region. Poor handling of e-waste can cause severe environmental and human health issues due to the toxic compounds in e-waste. E-waste also contains valuable metals worth recovering. Environmentally sound management (ESM) of e-waste is either absent or limited in developing countries due to the informal recycling sector's dominance. Many countries are in the process of developing regulations based on extended producer responsibility (EPR) concepts. This paper aims to review the current status, issues, and challenges faced by Asia Pacific countries and suggest a way forward for the ESM of e-waste.
Key Words:
E-waste
Extended producer responsibility
Informal recycling
Regulations
INTRODUCTION
The waste from used electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), commonly known as electronic waste or e-waste, is growing at an alarming rate in many countries. The rapid advancement of high technology equipment has helped to drive the economy in many countries. However, the knowledge of detrimental impacts on the environment and human health due to poor management of e-waste has only come up in recent years. The availability and affordability of many EEE with newer features have motivated the consumers to retire EEE well before their end-of-life (EOL), requiring a significant amount of e-waste to be handled and processed safely. The average life span of many essential EEE, such as computers and mobile phones, has fallen dramatically, causing the early obsolescence of these items. The United Nations (UN) has estimated that the world generated around 53 million tonnes (Mt) of e-waste in 2019 with a projection to reach 74 Mt by the year 2030 (Forti et al. 2020). The UN has also predicted that e-waste generation will be doubled from current levels to 111 Mt by the year 2050, effectively increasing by 2 Mt every year (Parajuly et al. 2019).
The transboundary movement of e-waste from industrialised countries to emerging and developing economies has caused significant challenges in countries in the Asia Pacific region due to a lack of infrastructure and financial resources to deal with the issue. To compound...