Markets, Globalization & Markets, Globalization &
Development Review Development Review
Volume 1 Number 1 Article 5
2016
Electronic Waste and Sustainability: Re>ections on a Rising Global Electronic Waste and Sustainability: Re>ections on a Rising Global
Challenge Challenge
Bipul Kumar
Indian Institute of Management, Indore
Kalyan Bhaskar
Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Kumar, Bipul and Bhaskar, Kalyan (2016) "Electronic Waste and Sustainability: Re>ections on a Rising
Global Challenge,"
Markets, Globalization & Development Review
: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 5.
DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2016-01-01-05
Available at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr/vol1/iss1/5
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Electronic Waste and Sustainability: Reflections on
a Rising Global Challenge
Introduction
The world economy has gone through a massive transformation in the last
two decades. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed in 1995
with the main aim to promote globalization and foster easier global
movement of goods and services. Evidence suggests that the volume of
global trade of goods and services has jumped manifold since then. The
total volume of global trade has gone up from a little more than US$6
trillion in 1995 to over US$36 trillion in 2014 (IMF 2016). The pattern of
trade has also undergone a change. Today the bulk of global trade
happens between advanced economies and emerging economies, while in
1995 most global trade used to happen among the advanced economies.
Among the three sectors of global economy, services sector continues to
contribute the maximum to global economy and, with the rise of industries
like information technology (IT) and financial services, has seen its share
increase at the expense of industry and agriculture (Table 1).
Table 1: The Three Sectors of the Global Economy
Sector
Share in world
economy 1995
Share in world
economy 2014
Services
58.5 %
68 %
Industry
33.5 %
28 %
Agriculture
8 %
4 %
Another major development in this period has been the emergence
of China as a global hub of manufacturing in various sectors such as
metals, electronics and communications, and automobiles. Driven mainly
by China, emerging market economies have contributed more than half of
the global growth in the last 15 years (IMF 2016). While no industry sector
has been left unaffected by these global developments, electronics and
telecommunications industry is perhaps the industry that has witnessed
the most significant and major shifts. Advent and growth of the internet,
and advancements in communication technologies have led to a revolution
the world over in the form of emergence of new Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (EEE) like mobile phones and various handheld devices, and
radical changes have taken place in existing EEE like computers and
printers. One of the most iconic companies in this field, Apple, introduced
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the iPhone in 2007 and in nine years sold over 700 million iPhones in
countries around the world (Reisinger 2015). Today Apple products are
sold in more countries than there are members of the WTO (Linshi 2014;
WTO Members and Observers 2015). Evolution of global trade and
reduction of trade barriers have further allowed Apple to design its
products in one country, manufacture phone and components in various
other countries, and sell the finished products the world over with or
without partnerships of local agencies (Minasians 2016). A similar story is
reflected in consumer electronics industry where goods like televisions,
computers, servers and other network equipment have witnessed
significant technological advancements and sales boosts across regions of
the world. A global economy increasingly driven by the services sector has
continuous and growing requirements of EEE required for day-to-day
business operations like computers, servers, and network switches. Rise
in disposable incomes and changing consumer preferences have also
ensured that the demand for EEE is also high from retail consumers like
households.
The happy face of wide global availability – even in the
economically poor parts of the world, of mobile phones and other
affordable electronic devices – however, has a dark and foreboding side.
A consequence of the growth in the sales of electrical and electronics
equipment (EEE) has been the rise in volume of ‘waste electrical and
electronics equipment’ (WEEE), more commonly known as electronic
waste (e-waste). Technological and product innovations, rapidly declining
consumer prices, evolving consumer preferences, and quicker
obsolescence of products have been considered as some of the drivers of
global e-waste growth (Khetriwal, Kraeuchi and Widmer 2009). Some of
these, for example rapidly declining consumer prices, are in turn a
consequence of, among other factors, increased globalization that has
allowed companies in one country or region to reap benefits of economies
of scale by producing for multiple regions or countries.
Annual global levels of e-waste have crossed 40 million metric tons
mark and are fast approaching 50 million tons (MT) (Baldé et al. 2014). E-
waste is different from many other streams of waste like household waste:
it contains several precious metals (e.g., gold, silver), rare earth metals
(e.g., lanthanum, cerium), toxic metals (e.g., lead, lithium, and mercury),
besides containing biodegradable materials like wood and non-
biodegradable materials like plastic (Mayers, France and Cowell 2005;
Ministry of Environment and Forest 2008). It is because of the presence of
toxic metals that dumping in the landfills, as is usually done with
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DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2016-01-01-05
household waste in several parts of the world, is not a recommended
option for e-waste.
The contribution to global e-waste volume and the resulting effects
are not uniform across regions of the world. There is a wide disparity
across the advanced and emerging regions of the world when it comes to
quantities and patterns of generation of e-waste, as well as domestic e-
waste legislation, and management of e-waste including practices by
market actors. There are 7 billion people in the world reached by
consumer electronic products but only 4 billion are covered by national
legislation for e-waste, and not all those laws are enforced in all places
(Baldé et al. 2014). Advanced economies in general have high per-capita
generation of e-waste, legislation for e-waste, management of e-waste
almost completely by the organized and formal sector, and several
mechanisms like take-back schemes by market actors. In contrast
developing countries, particularly the poorer one, tend to have low per-
capita generation of e-waste, limited or no legislation for e-waste, large
presence of informal and unorganized sector for management of e-waste,
and limited or no mechanisms for market actors to deal with e-waste. The
size and scope of global e-waste problem is discussed in the next section.
Size and Scope of Global E-Waste Problem
Figures for past and current sales, in volume terms as well as in value
terms, of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) are available in the
public domain at various levels (e.g., for a company, a country, a region,
or the world). The main sources of these figures are reports of national
governments and government agencies, annual reports published by the
companies and economic and market databases of various firms. For e-
waste, however, there are no official figures available for past or current
global generation. One of the main reasons for that is the fact that
inventory of e-waste has not been maintained in most parts of the world
and even today many countries do not have such official inventory figures.
For example, India does not yet have official inventory figures for domestic
e-waste generation. There are, however, many country-specific and
region-specific estimates available from various agencies worldwide.
One of the most recent global estimates of e-waste was carried out
by United Nations University (UNU) (Baldé et al. 2014). According to these
estimates, the global e-waste generation in 2014 was expected to be 41.8
million metric tons (MT), up from 33.8 MT in 2010, and projected to grow
to 49.8 MT by 2018. The report also provides estimates for e-waste
generation at regional level as shown in Table 2.
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