Global loss due to inadequate e-waste management practices amounts to $37 billion annually, with Bangladesh being a significant contributor, according to a study conducted by the International Telecommunication Union.
The report “The Global E-WASTE Monitor 2024” published by the ITU, a specialized agency of the United Nations, Bangladesh is one of the largest e-waste generators in the South Asian region and the country generated 367 million kilograms of e-waste in 2022 at a rate of 2.2 kilograms per capita.
The report defined e-waste as the waste stream that contains both hazardous and valuable materials generated from disposed electrical and electronic equipment.
The UN agency published statistics of e-waste generation in 193 countries based on the data for the year 2022, showing that a record 62 billion kilograms of e-waste were generated globally in 2022, averaging 7.8 kilograms per person a year.
The report explained that despite gaining $28 billion from metal recovery and $23 billion from reduced greenhouse gas emissions, the costs of e-waste treatment and associated health and environmental impacts remain high.
With $10 billion spent on treatment and $78 billion in externalized costs, the net result is a staggering $37 billion annual loss in global e-waste management, it said.
The externalized costs amount to an estimated $36 billion in long-term socioeconomic and environmental costs, $22 billion representing the cost of illnesses and decreases in human capital, and the average monetized value of working lives caused by mercury emissions, $19 billion arising from the release of plastic waste into the environment, less than $1 billion arising from the release of lead into the environment and its effects on wildlife and humans.
Experts said that Bangladesh was incurring loss in this sector due to lack of a formal mechanism in e-waste management, and said e-waste management could be an industry if the government had set up proper processes.
The ITU report stated that Bangladesh had only a few licensed e-waste dismantlers, which used basic resource recovery practices that were polluting and unsafe.
In the Southern Asian region, India, Iran, Thailand and Pakistan were above Bangladesh in generating e-waste, amounting to 4,137 million kilograms, 817 million kilograms, 753 million kilograms and 559 million kilograms of e-waste respectively in 2022.
Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives stayed below Bangladesh.
E-waste contains toxic and persistent substances, such as the flame retardants that are used in appliances and in EEE containing plastics.
