For nearly a year, a disused 30-inch cathode-ray-tube (CRT) TV sat in the living room of Mrs Adeline Koh’s four-room flat. No karung guni or rag-and-bone man wanted the old set because it was too bulky and heavy to cart away.
Two weeks ago, the 38-year-old finally handed it over to local rag-and-bone company Recycling Point Dot Com, which will donate or scrap it.
As consumers like her switch more frequently to sleeker appliances and gadgets, lured by firms constantly upgrading their products, the problem of electronic waste, or e-waste, is mounting.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) does not keep a record of the amount of e-waste generated in Singapore, but figures showing the amount of electronic gadgets consumers here buy each year should prove cause for worry.
E-waste, if not properly disposed of, can pose hazards to the environment and human health.
Last year, more than 443,000 TV sets were bought here - an 80 per cent jump from the number in 2007, according to figures this month by market research firm GfK. The demand for laptop and desktop computers is likewise booming - sales of desktops in the second quarter of last year were up 39 per cent year-on-year. On average, Singapore residents replace their cellphones every 12 to 16 months, said GfK.
Recycling firms said the volume of e-waste has grown over the years. Recycling Point Dot Com founder Joseph Tan said he now processes 200 tonnes of e-waste a month, up from five to 10 tonnes a month 15 years ago.
Going by how Singapore has performed on some surveys on green issues, waste management, including e-waste, merits closer attention.
A recent survey by consulting firm Solidiance, for example, named Singapore as the fourth-greenest city in the Asia-Pacific region, winning accolades for water management and green buildings. But it was ranked last among the 10 cities surveyed on overall waste management. It fared poorly both in waste produced per capita and municipal recycling ratio.
Proper management of e-waste brings benefits.
First, it is a veritable treasure trove. Computer parts and circuit boards contain tiny amounts of gold - in fact, the gold medals at the Vancouver Winter Olympics last year contained a small amount of gold from e-waste.
Second, recovering materials like gold, copper and plastic, in theory, is less environmentally destructive than mining or making them afresh.
But electronic items contain toxic substances like lead, mercury, cadmium and flame retardants, which can get into the environment if not handled properly. For example, lead can leach into the environment from the broken glass of CRTs. And if PVC-coated wires are burned to extract copper, dioxins - compounds linked to cancer, developmental defects and other health problems - are released.
The NEA said most e-waste here is recycled, but did not provide figures.
‘Hence, there is very little risk of groundwater contamination arising from e-waste disposal,’ said a spokesman.
But the NEA does not consider reused items, such as working appliances sold to karung guni men and second-hand dealers, as e-waste.
Environmentalists said many here are unaware of the option to recycle, partly because there are few collection points.
The focus of recycling incentives here, such as the NEA’s 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) Fund, is still on traditional recyclables such as paper and glass, said Mr Howard Shaw, executive director of the Singapore Environment Council, a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
He said: ‘We should look at e-waste because we use so many electronic components and they become so redundant so quickly.’
Currently, there are four NEA-approved recycling plants, which use high-tech methods to break down electronic items and recover precious and semi-precious metals.
For example, TES-AMM, which recycles phones for Nokia and Sony Ericsson, uses a process called electrolysis to strip gold from used circuit boards. The metal is then collected and smelted into bars. There, the crushing and separating of metals are done mechanically and workers are protected with gloves and masks.
But many people simply do not know where to send their unwanted electronic goods.
There is not enough infrastructure to take back e-waste and direct it to the right channels for recycling, said Mr Shaw. He suggested that more suppliers implement take-back programmes like Nokia’s ongoing phone recycling scheme.
Manufacturers and businesses can also play a bigger role.
Mr Venkatesha Murthy, director of electronic scrap recovery firm Cimelia, noted that in Europe and Japan, manufacturers have to pay a recycling fee, which supports material-recovery firms.
In Singapore, manufacturers pay waste incineration fees instead - which work out to be $77 to $81 a tonne and are meant to indirectly encourage recycling.
‘Here, consumers expect to get paid, instead of pay, for recycling,’ Mr Murthy said.
To conveniently dispose of their old appliances, many consumers turn to unlicensed karung guni men, who in turn resell them to second-hand dealers here. Foreign dealers buy them, and they may end up overseas in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The NEA does not track where items go, though exporters must furnish proof that they are bound for reuse. But the second-hand trade, which involves many small-time players, is not well regulated.
Once the goods arrive at their destinations, they may not be reused but are taken apart - not always in a safe manner - for parts such as plastic and scrap metal. The remaining parts may not be properly recycled if the technology and infrastructure required are unavailable.
Thus, items like Mrs Koh’s 30-inch TV may end up as hazardous waste in a developing country if not disposed of properly.
Mr Eugene Tay, who runs environmental consultancy Green Future Solutions, proposed that the Government take steps to ensure the items are really reused. For example, the exporting country should have standards to ensure items can be reused, and the importing country could get importers to show proof, such as pictures or serial numbers - though realistically, he admitted this might be difficult.
Another way to manage the potentially harmful effects of e-waste is to cut down on hazardous substances in devices. NGOs like Greenpeace are asking manufacturers not to use such toxic materials in devices. The European Union’s (EU) Restriction Of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive also restricts the use of six hazardous substances in a variety of electronic goods.
Singapore does not have such regulations yet, though experts reckon that most items sold here probably already comply with the RoHS regulations.
But the authorities are beginning to keep such records. Earlier this month, the NEA awarded a $58,000 contract to GfK to find out what proportion of commonly used consumer appliances sold here between October 2006 and September 2009 comply with the RoHS directive.
Asked about the study, the NEA spokesman said: ‘Like many countries outside EU, NEA is monitoring the development of its RoHS as part of the regular review of its own system.’
But the key to reducing e-waste, said Mr Tay of Green Future Solutions, is still to curb what he calls the ‘tech obsessive-compulsive disorder’ - the need to buy ever shinier and better gadgets.
‘The treatment for the disorder is to reduce first, reuse and recycle last.’
