COMPARATIVE STUDY ON E-WASTE MANAGEMENT AND THE ROLE OF THE BASEL CONVENTION IN MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE, AND INDONESIA: A WAY FORWARD (original) (raw)

Sustainable E-Waste Management in Malaysia: Lessons from Selected Countries

IIUM Law Journal, 2020

The seriousness of electrical and electronic equipment waste (E-waste/WEEE) problem is currently haunting both developed and developing nations around the world. WEEE in layman’s term can be defined as discarded components of electrical and electronic equipment that have no reuse value. Improper disposal of WEEE can bring about catastrophic effects to mankind and the environment. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, 1992 categorises WEEE as hazardous waste due to the presence of toxic materials. Currently, the production of WEEE is expanding at a significant rate and is expected to touch 52.2 million Mt tonnes globally by 2021. The nations around the world have taken initiatives such as introducing new laws, regulations and policies. Malaysia is also similarly affected by the increasing volume of WEEE and it has been reported that its WEEE would reach an aggregate of 762.507 million units by 2020. In response, the Mal...

E-waste management: An emerging global crisis and the Malaysian scenario

Rapid progress in standard of living and advances in information and communication technology (ICT) has generated an enormous amount of end of life electrical and electronic equipment which eventually become e-waste. Although it represents a small percentage of total solid waste, e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world, with most of them flowing from developed to developing countries for the purpose of recovery and recycling activities. However, poor recovery and recycling facilities produce toxic residues which were eventually landfilled or openly incinerated with severe negative effects on human and environmental health. Although the Basel Convention and other legislations were introduced by nations to limit the global trans-boundary shipment of the highly toxic e-waste, the illicit trade is difficult to trace and regulate due to multiple loopholes. Consequently, only a small fraction of generated e-waste finds its way to licensed material recovery facilities (MRFs) for recycling purposes, while the rest is recovered by the informal sector in the developing countries. One of latest e-waste reduction strategies introduced is the extended producer responsibility. Although the issue of e-waste is quite new in Malaysia, the country is also grappling with the crisis and has become one the main destinations of the global e-waste trade.

Electronic waste: present status and future perspectives of sustainable management practices in Malaysia

The ever-increasing and rapidly growing volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment has become a serious threat to the environment in many countries. The inevitability of e-waste management and the development of a holistic system to deal with it has become an indispensable socio-economic and environmental issue for the sustainable development of Malaysia. However, no comprehensive research has yet been carried out, and only a few works in a discreet manner have been begun. In view of the above, and as a small endeavor towards achieving the country's Vision 2020, this study explores the present status and future perspectives of the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Malaysia. This article presents an overview of e-waste management practices around the world, including the generation of e-waste, the implementation of management strategies, and collection and recovery activities in Malaysia. It also presents the corresponding responses adopted so far with respect to legislation and other infrastructural development. Finally, through the use of structured and semi-structured interviews, it reveals the barriers and challenges, as well as future perspectives and sustainability issues related to the e-waste management system in this fast developing country.

Strategies to manage electronic waste approaches: an overview in Malaysia

Strategies to manage electronic waste approaches: an overview in Malaysia, 2018

The issue of e-waste is becoming an increasingly threatening problem as it contains many toxic materials that can severely harm both human beings and the environment. This problem is expected to worsen if not serious efforts are taken to manage this e-waste. The current paper introduced quantity of e-waste generated and their negative impact on both environment and human beings in some countries including Ma-laysia. It also presents the managerial efforts taken in this regard to deal with the e-waste. The current study is an effort to decrease the danger and solve e-waste problems. For that, it utilized different tools such as LCA, MFA, MCA and EPR. Over and above all of these, no matter how well the policies are introduced and implemented benefits will only arise provided end users are prepared to accept introduced policies and adhere to them.

E-Waste: An Underrated Hazardous Waste in Indonesia

Journal of Environmental Engineering & Waste Management

The quick advancement of gadgets innovation industry offers an extensive variety of item decisions. This circumstance supported the improvement of electronic industry in Indonesia to be quick. The speeding up development is combined with items that are quickly out of date on the grounds that more current age items have showed up once more. So that, the electronic things which have been unused in the end move toward becoming refuse that is frequently alluded to as Electronic Waste (e-squander) and encountered an exceptionally fast increment. From the aftereffects of research in creating nations including Indonesia, E-Waste isn't found in squander Final Disposal (TPA). This is because of the high number of reusing and reuse (reusing) of utilized electronic products in the casual division. Reusing of the casual division is firmly identified with natural and wellbeing impacts. It isn't understood that numerous segments of electronic products contain hazardous toxic substances (B...

E-Waste Causes and Management Using BASEL Convention

IJEER, 2015

E-waste" is a popular, informal name for electronic products nearing the end of their "useful life. “Electronic waste" may be defined as discarded computers, office electronic equipment, entertainment device electronics, mobile phones, television sets, and refrigerators. "E-wastes are considered dangerous; ascertain components of some electronic products contain materials that are hazardous, depending on their condition and density. This includes used electronics which are destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling, or disposal. Others are re-usable (working and repairable electronics) and secondary scrap (copper, steel, plastic, etc.) to be "commodities", and reserve the term "waste" for residue or material which is dumped by the buyer rather than recycled, including residue from reuse and recycling operations. Many of these products can be reused, refurbished, or recycled in an environmentally sound manner so that they are less harmful to the ecosystem. This paper highlights the hazards of e-wastes, the need for its appropriate management and options that can be implemented.

Safeguarding The Natural Environment: Laws On E-Waste Management In Malaysia

The European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences, 2019

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

E-waste: a problem or an opportunity? Review of issues, challenges and solutions in Asian countries

Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy, 2012

Safe management of electronic and electrical waste (e-waste/WEEE) is becoming a major problem for many countries around the world. In particular, developing countries face a number of issues with the generation, transboundary movement and management of e-waste. It is estimated that the world generates around 20–50 million tonnes of e-waste annually, most of it from Asian countries. Improper handling of e-waste can cause harm to the environment and human health because of its toxic components. Several countries around the world are now struggling to deal with this emerging threat. Although the current emphasis is on end-of-life management of e-waste activities, such as reuse, servicing, remanufacturing, recycling and disposal, upstream reduction of e-waste generation through green design and cleaner production is gaining much attention. Environmentally sound management (ESM) of e-waste in developing countries is absent or very limited. Transboundary movement of e-waste is a major iss...

Global perspectives on e-waste

Environmental Impact …, 2005

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is an emerging problem as well as a business opportunity of increasing significance, given the volumes of e-waste being generated and the content of both toxic and valuable materials in them. The fraction including iron, copper, aluminium, gold and other metals in e-waste is over 60%, while pollutants comprise 2.70%. Given the high toxicity of these pollutants especially when burned or recycled in uncontrolled environments, the Basel Convention has identified e-waste as hazardous, and developed a framework for controls on transboundary movement of such waste. The Basel Ban, an amendment to the Basel Convention that has not yet come into force, would go one step further by prohibiting the export of e-waste from developed to industrializing countries. Section 1 of this paper gives readers an overview on the e-waste topic-how e-waste is defined, what it is composed of and which methods can be applied to estimate the quantity of e-waste generated. Considering only PCs in use, by one estimate, at least 100 million PCs became obsolete in 2004. Not surprisingly, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) today already constitutes 8% of municipal waste and is one of the fastest growing waste fractions.