E-waste can create jobs, says Indian-born Australian scientist



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The effective management and disposal of electronic waste, or electronic waste – the bowels and envelopes of smartphones, desktops, laptops and discarded printers, among other things – is a huge modern challenge. But an Australian of Indian origin says that end-of-life electronics offer enormous economic and job-creating potential, and India, which produces more than two million tonnes of waste every year electronic devices, certainly has an advantage.

According to Veena Sahajwalla, Materials Specialist at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, the economic value of E-dumps is also in line with the "Swachh Bharat" and "Make in India" campaigns from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sahajwalla is the inventor of what she calls micro-factories capable of turning electronic waste into reusable materials to convert them into ceramics and plastic filaments for 3D printing. High quality metals – such as gold, silver, copper, palladium – present in electronic waste can be separated to be resold in completely safe conditions.

India has an advantage, she said. But how?

Street scrap collectors, and the country has a large number, can be used, trained and introduced into microfactories

"India already has kabadiwallas (waste collectors) and scavengers working at the local level. "

" What we and the government need to do is give them technology, deploy the microfactories (e-waste) and teach them how it works. It is that, instead of burning this electronic waste, these people will work in a sustainable and safe environment without producing any kind of toxic waste, "IANS told IANS the graduate of the metallurgical department of IIT-Kanpur, a native from Mumbai, 19659002] "In this way," she says, "we do not move kabadiwallas and scavengers. Instead, we can create more job opportunities. "

The Director of the Center for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) at UNSW was in the capital to meet with government officials to discuss his invention Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honor given to Indians Overseas, for its outstanding scientific achievements among many other awards, has proposed to deploy a microfactory to Seelampur, the capital's digital cemetery with piles of cell phones and abandoned computers

This semi-urban pocket works with waste, including e-waste, to create value-added products such as decorative glbad panels, acoustic panels with disposable fabrics and high-quality wood-plastic panels. "

"She offers new employment opportunities … to our cities … to our rural areas," she said.

there is no reason to burn plastic … microfactures can create filament with plastic by compressing waste in a temperature-controlled area. "

Its solution fits perfectly into the mission" Make in India "and" Swachh Bharat "by Prime Minister Modi.

"A modular microfacture, which would require an area of ​​50 m2, can be located wherever waste is stored. The science behind these plants would be imported from Australia. These microfactories are affordable, can be built locally and will help empower people who work with waste.

"If you can create products using electronic waste and then sell the filaments (to) make value-added products using 3D printing, then we are not only making our environment more livable, but we are also creating sustainable job opportunities for people at the lowest level of the chain.

Speaking of the challenges India may face, she said: "To succeed, initial capital expenditures were important." A small operator will simply not have enough money to pay for it. money to do something and, therefore, if Prime Minister Modi looks at the Make in India campaign, the finances and initial capital expenditures are important. "

Something about all the waste? it was a visit to Seelampur last year that brought him to think about the injustice in our societies. "It was so sad to see people working in conditions that would be considered unacceptable to us all. "

" It is difficult to digest how we allow anything that has so much economic value in itself not to be treated in a way so there is equity. We love our phones and computers. But at the end of the spectrum, when all these technologies reach the end of their lives, we have people working in unacceptable conditions to get rid of them. It is almost ironic that there are two ends of the best and the worst of technology. "

She said that it was" the holistic approach to education "of UNSW that helped her to explore different aspects of research. She said that India's material science students, including Ph.D. students and a postdoctoral fellow, were doing advanced research at UNSW.

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