The First WHO report on e-waste and child health calls for more effective and binding action to protect children from growing health threat pose by the informal processing of discarded electrical or electronic devices.
The report, Children and Digital Dumpsites, calls for effective and binding action to ensure environmentally sound disposal of e-waste. This will help protect the health and safety of workers, their families and communities. It also calls for the need to monitor e-waste exposure and health outcomes and to facilitate better reuse of materials.
Moreover, it calls for the need to encourage the manufacture of more durable electronic and electrical equipment.
It also calls on the health community to take action to reduce the adverse health effects from e-waste. According to the report, the health community can do this by building health sector capacity. This will help diagnose, monitor and prevent toxic exposure among children and women.
Furthermore, it advocates raising awareness of the potential co-benefits of more responsible recycling and working with affected communities. It also recommends a better data and health research on the health risks faced by informal e-waste workers.
About 30.9 million children and women at risk
The report reveals that about12.9 million women are working in the informal waste sector. This potentially exposes them to toxic e-waste and puts them and their unborn children at risk.
Meanwhile, the report shows that more than 18 million children and adolescents, are actively engaged in the informal industrial sector. This is the sector of which waste processing is a sub-sector.
“With mounting volumes of production and disposal, the world faces what one recent international forum described as a mounting “tsunami of e-waste”, putting lives and health at risk. We need to rally to protect our most valuable resource –the health of our children – from the growing threat of e-waste” .
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
The WHO indicated that parents or caregivers often engage their children in e-waste recycling. This is because their small hands are more dexterous than those of adults. Also, the WHO noted that some children live, go to school and play near e-waste recycling centres. WHO warned that high levels of toxic chemicals, mostly lead and mercury, can damage their intellectual abilities.
Furthermore, WHO noted that children exposed to e-waste are particularly vulnerable to the toxic chemicals they contain. This is due to their smaller size, less developed organs and rapid rate of growth and development. They absorb more pollutants relative to their size and are less able to metabolize or eradicate toxic substances from their bodies.
Impact of e-waste on human health
The report further shows that workers, aiming to recover valuable materials such as copper and gold, are at risk of exposure to over 1,000 harmful substances. This include lead, mercury, nickel, brominated flame retardants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
For an expectant mother, exposure to toxic e-waste can affect the health and development of her unborn child for the rest of its life. Potential adverse health effects include negative birth outcomes, such as stillbirth and premature births, as well as low birth weight and length.
A rapidly escalating problem
E-waste volumes are surging globally. According to the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP), they grew by 21% in the five years up to 2019. About 53.6 million metric tonnes of e-waste were generated during this period. For perspective, last year’s e-waste weighed as much as 350 cruise ships placed end to end to form a line 125km long.
GESP projected a rise in e-waste production due to increasing demand for computers, mobile phones and other electronics, alongside their rapid obsolescence.
Meanwhile, recent GESP estimates show that only 17.4% of e-waste produced in 2019 reached formal management or recycling facilities. The rest was illegally dumped, overwhelmingly in low- or middle-income countries, where it is recycled by informal workers.
Appropriate collection and recycling of e-waste is key to protect the environment and reduce climate emissions. In 2019, the GESP found that collection and recycling of e-waste prevented as much as 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from being released into the environment.
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