This story is from June 10, 2019

Panaji youth take up challenge to dispose of e-waste correctly

Discarded electronics, when improperly disposed, have the potential of harming our ecosystem. If you hang on to your old gadgets because you don’t have the heart to discard it, now is the time. A group of youngsters in Panaji are making an effort to reduce e-waste by holding an ‘erase your e-waste’ programme from June 18 to 23 in the city.
Panaji youth take up challenge to dispose of e-waste correctly
Representative image
Panaji: Discarded electronics, when improperly disposed, have the potential of harming our ecosystem. If you hang on to your old gadgets because you don’t have the heart to discard it, now is the time. A group of youngsters in Panaji are making an effort to reduce e-waste by holding an ‘erase your e-waste’ programme from June 18 to 23 in the city.
“The biggest problem with e-waste is that it doesn’t decompose,” said Dhananjay Gudi, assistant manager, Goa Waste Management Corporation.

He said that the usual practice is to discard electronic waste like solid waste which gets sent to a landfill. There, it’s typically broken up, then burned and these processes cause the emission of harmful substances.
“There is gold and platinum in cellphones and heavy metals such as lead and mercury in other electronic equipment. In the process of extracting these metals, workers end up inhaling the poisonous chemicals when the electronics are burnt. Those in the scrap business are prone to cancer due to this inhalation,” he said.
Besides air pollution, the chromium and lead in e-waste tend to seep into the soil and groundwater after the electronic waste is buried in a landfill, polluting the land and water resources, he added.
Gudi is organizing the e-waste collection drive in collaboration with the Rotaract Club of Panaji.
“We are expecting citizens to surrender their major electronics like computer monitors and CPUs, old geysers and set-top boxes, but even something as small as an old remote-control device, cellphones and batteries can be handed over to us,” said Shivani Malkarnekar, president of Rotaract Panaji.
Citizens can submit their e-waste at the Youth Hostel, Miramar, from 6pm onwards from June 18 to 21 and between 10am to 8pm from June 22 to 23. “We will hand over the e-waste to the Goa Waste Management Corporation who will then dispose of it responsibly.” she said.
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