Discarded computers and consumer electronics, so-called electronic waste (or “e-waste” for short) is one of the fastest growing and most highly toxic waste streams in the world.

Containing lead, mercury, arsenic and several classes of bromine compounds designed to keep the machines from catching fire during normal use, the fruits of our high-tech revolution are pure poison if improperly disposed at the end of their useful life.

Since the computer industry lives by a mantra of planned obsolescence, the moment you buy a product it is already old, the passion in most of the industrialised world, especially in the United States, which is the largest consumer market in the world, is for the newest, fastest, and cheapest gadgets.

The result: mountains of cast-off products, much of which is exported to developing countries by waste brokers intent on making a tiny profit from the small amounts of gold, lead, and copper in electronic devices. If jobs can be shipped overseas, why not waste!

Ahmedabad is recently said to have received over 30 tonnes of e-waste and while it is difficult to ascertain the quantum of computer waste and other electronic waste because of insufficient details in the import categories, import of computers is the largest component of e-waste.

India itself, according to a report prepared by an environmental group, toxicslink, is producing 1.38 million computers. With greater purchase of computers and the shipping of e-waste from other countries the problem is likely to get worse.

E-waste has devastating consequences for the land, air, water and people in the receiving countries. In India, as in China, Mexico, Ghana and many other developing nations, discarded electronics are taken apart by hand under crude conditions without regard for proper environmental or worker safety protections.

The brute economics of this growing global waste drive business to “recyclers” who operate at the lowest possible cost.

But that is only a small piece of this puzzle. The problem is a lack of corporate responsibility in first-world countries, failure of law and public policy to put in place domestic solutions, and the policies of the importing countries. This is beginning to change.

A small network of environmental organisations in the United States and Canada, operating together as the Computer TakeBack Campaign (www.computertakeback.com), is re-writing the rules of corporate environmental responsibility and re-shaping the competitive marketplace.

A key element of the Campaign’s platform and proposed solution to the e-waste problem is to ban the export of hazardous electronics waste, such as is called for by the Basel Convention, which is regularly flouted through third-party exports or imports under different categories.

The moral imperative for a comprehensive solution is also present within U.S. shores, displaying itself through an effective solution, which we call producer responsibility.

Producer responsibility is the powerfully simple notion that companies that design, manufacture and market products are financially responsible for the environmental impacts of their products, including responsibility for managing equipment at the end of its useful life.

Producer responsibility for e-waste is the law in Europe and in Japan. Yet, the companies operating profitably in the European and Japanese markets under these rules are the same companies who object to those rules in other nations.

If the courts in India are willing to apply euro norms to vehicle pollution, there is no reason why the government cannot demand similar norms of producer responsibility of computer manufacturers.

The much written about Goldman Sachs report forecasts that India will be the third-largest economy in twenty years and will be close to attaining developed status in another thirty.

There is no doubt that with computer and allied sectors driving this growth the problem of e-waste is a clear and present danger to the country’s land, water and air.