Overview

The advance of science and technology has given us a whole new array of electrical and electronic products, and rendered many of them affordable to billions of people known as the "global consumer class" both in developed and developing countries. On the one hand, this advance has revolutionized the world with widely used cheap products, on the other hand it means that they become rapidly obsolete. The result is a tremendous and ever increasing quantity of electronics and electrical appliances being discarded, as it is often cheaper to buy new than to repair or to upgrade a broken or obsolete product. This has given rise to a new environmental challenge: waste from electrical and electronic equipment or "e-waste." The OECD has identified e-waste as one of the fastest growing waste streams. UNEP's expert advisory group meeting on the 10-year Framework on Sustainable Consumption and Production (The Marrakech Process) also identified e-waste as a priority waste stream.

E-waste is a generic term encompassing various forms of electronic and electrical equipment (EEE) which are old, end-of-life electronic appliances and which have ceased to be of any value to their owners.

It is well known that there are toxic substances in e-waste such as lead and cadmium in circuit boards; lead oxide and cadmium in monitor cathode ray tubes (CRTs); mercury in switches and flat screen monitors; cadmium in computer batteries; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in older capacitors and transformers and brominated flame retardants on printed circuit boards, plastic casings cables and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cable insulation. However, e-waste can also be valuable since it also contains precious and strategic metals and other high-tech materials. Discarded equipment can also often be repaired, and its components can be refurbished and reused.

In some developing countries, the recycling and separation of electronic waste has become the main source of income for a growing number of people

In the absence of suitable techniques and protective measures, recycling e-waste can result in toxic emissions to the air, water and soil and pose a serious health and environmental hazard. While the largest generators of e-waste are industrialized economies, the most vulnerable to the hazards of e-waste are informal recyclers in developing and emerging economies.

Recognising this emergent environmental threat, UNEP has initiated several programmes and activities worldwide.