Residents are worried about the lack of facilities for disposing of electronic goods such as discarded computers, televisions, music systems and even mobile phones, which contain hazardous material.
"I have seen people throw their computer monitors in the municipality waste bin or just leave them by the curb," said Sharifa Mahmoud, a teacher.
She said she had noticed municipality trucks collecting 'e-waste' along with normal waste and crushing everything, including electronic items, in their hydraulic compactors in the trucks.
Tricia D'Souza, a resident on Khalid Bin Walid Road, which contains a number of computer and electronics shops said she had often noticed people throwing mobile phones, printers, monitors and televisions in waste bins or putting them on the roadside next to the bins.
"They are collected with other waste by the municipality trucks," she said.
Sajeeva S, a salesman, wanted to get rid of his old computer but could not find anywhere to dispose of it.
"I wondered what to do with it because I didn't want to throw it in the dustbin knowing the machine contains toxic material. But unfortunately, I had to dump it in the municipality waste bin," he said.
Hamdan Al Shair, Director of Environment Department at Dubai Municipality told Gulf News the civic body was in a process of regulating procedures for the disposal of e-waste.
"We will soon announce the launch of a comprehensive programme to deal with e-waste," he said, but did not divulge details.
Sandhya Prakash, a member of the Dubai Natural History Group, said the proliferation of computers and electronic equipment presented a major long-term threat to conventional waste disposal systems.
"We are working on a programme in Dubai and have contacted various companies and banks to hand over their used or discarded computers. We try to fix the repairable computers and send them to needy people around the world," she said.
Electronic items which cannot be repaired should be sent for recycling in countries which have e-waste recycling programmes, she said.
Toxic
Components are poisonous
An electronic computer is a complicated assembly of more than 1,000 materials, many of which are highly toxic such as chlorinated and brominated substances, toxic gases, toxic metals, photoactive and biologically active materials, acids and plastic additives.
Each colour monitor contains an average of 1.8 to 3.6 kilos of lead, which can enter the environment when the monitors are illegally disposed of in landfills. Other toxic materials include cadmium, lead oxide, barium and mercury.
These are causing pollution in drinking water, waste discharges that harm fish and wildlife, high rates of miscarriages, birth defects and cancer clusters among workers.
Source: Exporting Harm: The Techno-Trashing of Asia study report
Gulf News
