E-waste: The new, more dangerous plastic

Bengaluru is the largest e-waste producer in India after Mumbai and Delhi. Manvel Alur has a solution for safe disposal

Seelampur, a resettlement colony in Delhi tells you what India is all about. All the mobile phones you exchange, the computer motherboards you sell to the kabadiwalla, the refrigerators that are beyond use, the air conditioners that you discard… a large part of these find their way to Seelampur, one of India’s bigger informal e-waste recycling centres. Motherboards are dipped in sulphuric acid and silver and gold is extracted from them. Circuit boards are a rich source for copper — provided you melt them down in high heat. Other computer components yield lead — which is a rich haul because