Have you ever thought that in the last twenty years we must have replaced several computers, CD players, mobile phones, TVs, refrigerator, television sets and so on. We upgrade our lifestyle with better TV or computers but the old gadget contributes in e-waste. Unfortunately today only 40% of the electronic items are recycled. According to EPA, in US only 4.6 million tons of e-waste is generated every year. Trust me this is huge quantity to maintain!!

Now your second concern would be how exactly is it affecting me…? The electronic waste contains several toxic material, namely lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic. Lead is extremely dangerous if it get into the body. It can result in heart problem, kidney problems, anemia, and nervous disorder. This is even more dangerous for children An EPA study shows that 40% of lead in the US environment is because of electronic waste.

We still don’t have many strong rules against e-waste. So this is our responsibility to take initiative and get into e-waste management. The first thing which you could do is to use the electronic item as long as possible thus reducing the electronic waste altogether. Supposedly you bought a laptop and now you have no use of your older PC then you could reuse by donating it to the needy.

The other appropriate option for e-waste management is the recycling of the electronic items. Sometime donation is not viable because the item couldn’t be used any further because most of its parts are irreplaceable or expensive. And the best option is to dump it. Here you should make sure that the gadget is recycled. Interestingly 50% of the computer peripheral can be recycled. Recycling has many advantages. The first is that you will completely stop the direct contribution of the pollution as e-waste.

Additionally when we are recycling any electronic item say a diode or transistor then the pollution caused to produce these elements will also be eliminated. So it is always advisable to recycle any electronic item. Today many big manufacturing companies are encouraging people to recycle their old electronic item. You can check in your local newspaper. There will be companies which deals with e-waste recycling. Do get in touch with them while you replacing new TV

And in the end look for products which are lower in toxics, offer take back options, are designed for upgrading and environment friendly. You can see that e-waste management is not difficult. We only need to take initiative to make it real!!