Coming up for air: PM10 concentrations at e-waste sites
Air pollution on the banks of the Ramganga, Moradabad, where thousands rely on clearing and processing e-waste to make a living (Johri, 2017).
We often hear about the air pollution that blankets countries like India and China. In places like Moradabad, India, the thick smog has actually been attributed to the problem of e-waste pollution.
According to Gangwar et al. (2019), illegal e-waste recycling was a major cause of increase in PM10 concentration in Moradabad. The intense air pollution levels that the city suffered through in 2018 exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQ) standards. In January 2018, the highest PM10 concentration of 371 μg/m3 was recorded, which was a whopping 3.71 times higher than the NAAQ standard.
Moradabad is home to a large informal e-waste recycling sector, being a hub for the recycling of products like printed circuit boards (PCBs). The informal sector uses crude and rudimentary methods to process e-waste, such as dismantling, combustion, incineration and open burning. During processes such as the mechanical separation and dismantling of PCBs, fine particulate matter gets released into the air. Gangwar et al. (2019) concluded that such methods were what resulted in the high levels of air particulate matter recorded, especially heavy metal levels.
Air pollution is just one of the direct impacts of improper e-waste disposal. This can, of course, have many serious implications for the humans living and breathing in such contaminated air. We’ll discuss the human impacts of living in proximity to such e-waste polluted sites in future posts. Stay tuned for more!
References
Gangwar, C., Choudhari, R., Chauhan, A., Kumar, A., Singh, A., & Tripathi, A. (2019). Assessment of air pollution caused by illegal e-waste burning to evaluate the human health risk. Environment International, 125, 191-199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.11.051.
Johri, A. D. (2017). On November 7, Moradabad recorded highest levels on pollution scale, but few were looking. The Indian Express. Retrieved 17 February 2022, from https://indianexpress.com/article/india/on-november-7-moradabad-aqi-500-recorded-highest-levels-on-pollution-scale-4943930/.