E-waste Management and Resource Recovery Potential in Asia and the Pacific

The Asia and the Pacific region refer to the execution of regional activities of the organization which includes more than 50 countries in the region. In 2013, the total population of the Asia-Pacific region stood at 4.3 billion, nearly 60 per cent of the world’s population hosting the two most populous countries in the world, China with 1.4 billion people and India with 1.25 billion people. The region has witnessed widespread changes in resource consumption due to the forces of globalization, industrialization, and urbanization. The Asia and Pacific region has become the world’s largest consumer of materials at the beginning of the 21st century having enormous potential for future expansion of material consumption due to the region’s large overall population, rapidly escalating urban population. The e-waste generation like other waste streams also has been rapidly increasing in last two decades in the region impacting the environment negatively. The export of e-waste emerged as an international issue in the early 2000s, particularly following the publication of the widely reported documentary by the Basel Action Network (BAN). Concerns of primitive e-waste recycling practices in many countries have become an important issue to improve and resolve. As a complex and relatively recent waste stream, countries all over the world including the region have been introducing specific legislation to enforce sound environmental treatment of e-waste. As yet, only the minority of states around the globe have national and regional e-waste legislation in force. However, e-waste remains a challenge in the Asia and the Pacific region, not only because of its increasing generation, but also because its proper treatment and prevention require the active engagement of a diverse set of actors, often spanning national borders. Recovery of huge resources is being lost because of ineffective handling and treatment of e-waste in consequence evolving significant environmental and health issues. In this backdrop, the present study covered the inventory of the existing electronic waste management that includes the generation, collection, treatment and final disposal in different countries in the Asia and the Pacific region and developing a e-waste management framework for future actions and a sustainable business model. The countries those were considered for the study included bigger countries, namely, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, North Korea, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Viet Nam etc. and the smaller countries like, SIDs, Vanuatu, Samoa, even the smallest one, the Niue.