Effective action is needed to protect children’s health from toxic electronic waste

Effective and binding action is urgently needed to protect the millions of children, adolescents and pregnant women around the world whose health is threatened by the informal treatment of discarded electrical or electronic devices, according to a new report revolutionary of the World Health Organization: Children and digital dumps.

With increasing volumes of production and disposal, the world is faced with what a recent international forum described as a growing “e-waste tsunami”, putting lives and health at risk. Just as the world has come together to protect the seas and their ecosystems from plastic and microplastic pollution, we must come together to protect our most precious resource – the health of our children – from the growing threat of electronic waste. . “

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO

As many as 12.9 million women work in the informal waste sector, potentially exposing them to toxic electronic waste and putting them and their unborn children at risk.

Meanwhile, more than 18 million children and adolescents, some of whom are only 5 years old, are actively engaged in the informal industrial sector, of which waste treatment is a sub-sector. Children are often engaged by parents or caregivers in recycling electronic waste because their little hands are more skillful than those of adults. Other children live, go to school and play near e-waste recycling centers where high levels of toxic chemicals, mainly lead and mercury, can damage their intellectual abilities

Children exposed to e-waste are particularly vulnerable to the toxic chemicals it contains due to their small size, less developed organs, and rapid growth and development rates. They absorb more pollutants for their size and are less able to metabolize or eradicate toxic substances from their bodies.

Impact of electronic waste on human health

Workers, who seek to salvage valuable materials such as copper and gold, are at risk of exposure to more than 1,000 harmful substances, including lead, mercury, nickel, brominated flame retardants and hydrocarbons polycyclic aromatics (PAHs).

For a pregnant woman, exposure to toxic electronic waste can affect the health and development of her unborn child for the rest of her life. Potential adverse health effects include negative birth outcomes, such as stillbirths and premature births, as well as low birth weight and height. Lead exposure from e-waste recycling activities has been associated with dramatically reduced neonatal behavioral neurological assessment scores, increased rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), behavioral problems , changes in the child’s temperament, difficulties in sensory integration and cognitive and language reduction. scores.

Other adverse health effects in children from e-waste include changes in lung function, respiratory and respiratory effects, DNA damage, altered thyroid function, and an increased risk of certain chronic diseases later in life. in life, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.

“A child who eats a single chicken egg from Agbogbloshie, a waste site in Ghana, will absorb 220 times the daily limit of the European Food Safety Authority for the intake of chlorinated dioxins,” said Marie-Noel Brune Drisse, WHO lead author on the report. . “Poor management of electronic waste is the cause. This is a growing problem that many countries do not yet recognize as a health problem. If they do not act now, its impacts will have a devastating effect on children’s health and weigh heavily on the health sector for years to come.

A rapidly worsening problem

The volumes of electronic waste are increasing globally. According to the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP), they increased by 21% in the five years leading up to 2019, when 53.6 million metric tonnes of e-waste was generated. To put it into perspective, last year’s e-waste weighed as many as 350 cruise ships put end to end to form a line 125 km long. This growth is expected to continue as the use of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices continues to expand, along with their rapid obsolescence.

Only 17.4% of e-waste produced in 2019 reached formal management or recycling facilities, according to the most recent GESP estimates, the rest was dumped illegally, the vast majority in low- and middle-income countries, where it is recycled by informal workers.

The proper collection and recycling of electronic waste is essential to protect the environment and reduce climate emissions. In 2019, GESP found that the 17.4% of e-waste collected and appropriately recycled prevented up to 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from being released into the environment.

Call to action

Children and digital dumpsites calls for effective and binding action by exporters, importers and governments to ensure environmentally sound disposal of electronic waste and the health and safety of workers, their families and communities; monitor e-waste exposure and health effects; facilitate better reuse of materials; and encourage the manufacture of more sustainable electronic and electrical equipment.

It also calls on the health community to take action to reduce the adverse health effects of electronic waste, by strengthening the capacity of the health sector to diagnose, monitor and prevent toxic exposure in children and women, raising awareness of the potential co-benefits of a more responsible recycling approach, working with affected communities and advocating for better health data and research on the health risks faced by informal e-waste workers.

“Children and adolescents have the right to grow up and learn in a healthy environment, and exposure to electrical and electronic waste and their many toxic components has an undoubted impact on this right,” said Dr Maria Neira , Director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, WHO. “The health sector can play a role in providing leadership and advocacy, conducting research, influencing decision makers, engaging communities and reaching out to other sectors to demand that health issues be addressed. at the heart of electronic waste policies.