Addressing Electronic Waste: Environmental Impacts and Solutions

Electronic garbage, or “e-waste,” is becoming a major environmental issue, especially in the wealthiest countries. Although there are technical alternatives for processing e-waste, the high cost of execution makes them difficult to apply. As a result, a lot of wealthy countries choose to export a large amount of their e-waste to less developed countries, which is a financially cheaper option. Complete implementation is still elusive despite the existence of several laws and policies at all levels of government, such as the regional Bamoko Convention, the international Basel Convention, and numerous national rules. Financial strains to maintain employment in the processing of e-waste make matters more difficult. Numerous management strategies are available to lessen the negative effects, including implementing the circular economy idea, encouraging urban mining, plugging gaps in the system, improving current laws and rules, and tackling economic inequality in the hierarchy of e-waste disposal management. The main point of the message is that rich countries should help developing countries deal with the e-waste issue rather than shifting their environmental issues on these underdeveloped areas.