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

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Volume 4, No 4, 2014

© Copyright by the authors - Licensee IPA- Under Creative Commons license 3.0

Research article ISSN 0976 – 4402

Received on November 2013 Published on January 2014 444

E-waste management: An emerging global crisis and the

Malaysian scenario Ahmad-Faisal Alias1, Mohd Bakri Ishak 2, Siti Nur Awanis Mohamad Zulkifli1,

Rusamah Abdul Jalil1

1- Department of Town and Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Planning and

Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) (Perak), 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak,

Malaysia.

2- Department of Environmental Management, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti

Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

[email protected]

doi: 10.6088/ijes.2014040400001

ABSTRACT

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.

Keywords, electronic waste, toxic, environmental impact, Basel Convention, extended

producer responsibility

1. Introduction

The alarming fast expansion rate of e-waste generation fuelled by the rapid economic growth

and increase demand for electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) or consumer electronics

devices (CEDs) is emerging as a global crisis, and due to the hazardous effects and toxicity of

e-waste, the problem has become very worrisome (Saphore et al., 2007; Abul Hasan et al.,

2010; Sthiannopkao and Wong, 2012). With digital and electronic technologies rapidly

advancing and ever-changing, product life cycle of EEEs has declined significantly, thus

becoming out of style and obsolete very quickly (Widmer et al., 2005; Osibanjo and Nnorom,

2007). The exponential boom and growth of the information and communication technology

(ICT) has increased the demand of new EEE resulting in expanding volume of obsolete or

scrapped EEE. In addition, the influx of cheap Chinese-made and imitation EEE products has

forced prices down and made them affordable in developing countries. Generally, Chinese

and imitation made EEE goods are considered as of low quality and having shorter useful life

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

Ahmad-Faisal Alias

International Journal of Environmental Sciences Volume 4 No.4, 2014 445

spans, and thus, further exacerbating the increase of e-waste generation. UNEP (2007)

projected that China’s internal e-waste generation will surpass the US’s by year 2020. China

is also estimated as the largest importer of global e-waste trade (Yoshida, 2005). It is

estimated that 20-25 million tonnes of e-waste are generated annually globally (Robinson,

2009; Abul Hassan et al., 2010) and the amount is still very rapidly growing.

In the old days, electrical domestic appliances and electronic products were made to last.

Some items such as refrigerators, gramophones, washing machines and ovens were

considered major luxury purchases, affordable only to the rich. Some products last for

generations and were passed from one generation to the next, like a family heirloom.

However, today’s electrical and electronic products tend to have shorter useful life-span with

an average expiry period of less than two years (Schmidt, 2005; Hawari and Hassan, 2008).

Rapid advances in latest product designs and applications features also attract consumers to

make new purchases to keep them up to date. For example, young and trendy executives

would discard their four-month old cell-phones for the latest generation of smart-phones even

when the older phones are still in good working condition, and thus increasing the volumes of

used or waste electrical and electronic equipment (UEEE or WEEE) products. Some of the

discarded items are still usable and can be sold on the second-hand markets, while most will

end up in the fast growing e-waste stream. Additionally, a significant amount of e-waste is

also languishing in storage in basements, garages and attics of many homes around the world

(Saphores et al., 2009).

Most commercial and industrial e-wastes will eventually end up in regulated recycling yards

to be dismantled and separated where the parts and components were reused, resold, recycled

or recovered locally or disposed of as scraps (Arora, 2008; Abul Hasan et al., 2010).

However, a vast majority of residential e-wastes were often discarded at curb sides with

municipal garbage and dumped in landfill, or openly incinerated for disposal with serious

environmental consequences. Although e-waste makes up about only between 5%-10% of the

total municipal solid waste stream, its high toxicity deems it extremely dangerous to human

and environmental health. In addition, despite it is being a relatively new stream (Leung et al.,

2006), e-waste is also one of the fastest growing components of waste stream in the world

(Pandey, 2004; Ray, 2008; Lawhon et al., 2010). For example in 2007, as one of the main e-

waste producers, EU countries generated an estimated 6.5 million tonnes of WEEE and with

an annual growth rate of 5% (Dalrymple, 2007). China further generated another two million

tonnes and growing at 10% annually (Wang et al., 2011b). In addition, India generated about

another 1.46 million tonnes (Pinto, 2008). In Malaysia, the volume of e-waste notified to the

authorities for disposal has more than tripled between 2006 and 2009. However, it is difficult

to determine a true picture of e-waste stream flow since there is a serious lack of accurate and

reliable e-waste generation data for most of countries (Terazano et al., 2006). Although many

countries have drafted and introduced legislations to control and regulate domestic and

foreign generation, collection, reuse, recycling, movement and disposal of such wastes

(Sinha-Khetriwal et al., 2006; Shinkuma and Huong, 2009; Sinha-Khetriwal et al., 2010;

Ongondo et al., 2011), lack of specific definition and standards for WEEE and UEEE also

renders efforts to control imports of e-waste difficult, especially in most Asian countries and

African (Li and Zhao, 2010).

According to various sources, there is yet to be a standard definition of ‘electronic waste’ or

generically for short, ‘e-waste’ (Widmer et al., 2005; Terazano et al., 2006; Lepawsky and

McNabb, 2009). Therefore, it is common that the definition of e-waste is alternately shared

with Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). Broadly defined, e-waste


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includes computers, cell phones and accessories, and discarded domestic appliances that use

electricity such as air conditioners, microwave ovens, tube lights and other electronic

consumer items at their end of life (EOL) (Sthiannopkao and Wong, 2012). The Organisation

for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2001) simply defines e-waste as ‘‘any

appliance using an electric power supply that has reached its end-of life’’. Another often-used

definition is the EU WEEE Directive’s (2003) “Electrical or electronic equipment which is

waste… including all components, sub-assemblies and consumables, which are part of the

product at the time of discarding”.

Traditionally, non-electronic and home appliance products such as refrigerators, washing

machines and ovens are categorized as WEEE. However, today it is hard to distinguish

among the two types of wastes as more and more home appliances (which make up almost

50% of collected WEEE in the EU, for instance) are embedded with electronics such as

microprocessors and capacitors (Abul Hasan et al., 2010; Arora, 2008, Ongondo et al., 2011).

E-wastes are chemically and physically distinct from municipal or industrial waste as they

may contain potent environmental contaminants (Robinson, 2009). They consist of very

much complex material, and most informal recyclers in the developing countries are lacking

the necessary tools and technologies to handle them effectively without severe consequences

on human health and the environment (Kuo, 2010).

2. Trends of e-Waste Processing

Due to increasingly high economic costs and strict regulatory directive requirements, e-waste

processing and recycling is no longer a viable venture in the developed western countries.

Therefore, most of the collected end of life EEE products are exported to developing

countries as a cheaper alternative way for disposal, purportedly destined for reuse, recycle or

recovery (Zoeteman and Krikke, 2010). For example, between 2000 and 2005 only roughly

20% of US’s 1.36 to 2 million tonnes of e-waste is processed locally annually. The remaining

80% were exported mainly to China, India, Nigeria and Pakistan for processing and recovery

(Abul Hasan et al., 2010; Kahhat et al., 2008), sometimes through third countries with less

stringent environmental and customs scrutiny or legislations concerning e-waste (Iles, 2004).

However, Arora (2008) and Kimani (2009) note that in most of the receiving countries, a

majority of the recycling and recovery activities were undertaken by the informal or non-

formal enterprises which lacks the skills and capacity of proper storage, recycle, recovery and

disposal facilities. They often employ primitively low-tech and crude dismantling and

recycling methods to recover valuable metals and seemingly oblivious to the dangers of toxic

dioxin and furan fumes released during the process (Ha et al., 2009). For example, plastic

coated wires were burnt to harvest the copper within while printed circuit boards (PCBs)

were crushed and dipped into vats of strong acid to melt small amounts of gold, copper and

other precious trace metals (Agarwal, 2005). Most often, at the end of the processes non-

reusable or residual e-waste and by-products would be landfilled or openly incinerated

together with domestic wastes or re-exported (Arora, 2008). Additionally, unskilled and

inefficient operators also often resulted in the substantial loss of valuable materials during the

process (Chatterjee and Kumar, 2009).

In some countries, e-waste recycling and recovery industry is a significant source of revenue.

It is a lucrative and profitable but risky business because e-waste contains considerable range

of reusable parts, precious and valuable metals and other materials (Lim and Haw, 2011). The

industry also provides employment opportunities to the poorest and uneducated sections of

the community, taking advantage of the unskilled and cheap labor costs (Iles, 2004; Chen et


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al., 2010). Normally, WEEE contains five main categories of recoverable materials, ferrous

metals, non-ferrous metals, glass, plastics and other materials. Ferrous metals (iron and steel)

represent more than half of the total weight of WEEE. 21% are plastics while non-ferrous

metals represent 13% mainly copper from the printed circuit boards (Ongondo et al., 2011).

E-waste is recycled to extract and recover significant amount of valuable metals (gold, silver,

copper) and trace amount of other precious metals such as palladium, platinum, tantalum and

plastic (Chatterjee and Kumar, 2009, Othman et al., 2009). However, e-waste also contains

undesirable and extremely harmful substances. Electrical and electronic assemblies normally

contain highly toxic components like accumulators, mercury switches, CRT glass, PCB

capacitors or contaminated with heavy metals or PCBs (Arora, 2008).

The extremely toxic nature of the e-waste and its by-products requires special care and

treatment during their handling, transportation, recovery, recycling and final disposal

processes (Terazano et al., 2006; Robinson, 2009). Therefore, gross mismanagement and

mishandling of e-waste can cause severe health and environmental impacts as they also

contain more than 1,000 hazardous trace elements, heavy metals and toxic materials such as

lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, selenium, and hexavalent (Widmer et al., 2005; Herat,

2007; Ha et al., 2009). E-waste also contains persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such poly-

brominated diphenyls ethers (PBDEs) (Leung et al., 2006; Sakai, 2004) which can cause

potentially harmful pollution and contamination in landfills and dumps, and thus, affecting

nearby habitats and residents (Inanc, 2004).

According to Leung et al. (2006) and Wong et al. (2007a and 2007b), inappropriately

landfilled e-waste leaches substantial amount of persistent toxic substances (PTSs) such as

heavy metals, toxins and dioxin-like compounds into the soil and water supplies, thus

affecting the surrounding areas’ plant growth and agricultural environment. They cite Guiyu

(Guangdong Province) and Taizhou (Zhejiang Province) in China as among the most polluted

and contaminated places on earth due to extensive unregulated e-waste recovery and

recycling activities. Heavy metals (for example Cu, Pb and Zn) pollutants and new toxin by-

products could also contaminate local soils, plants, animals, food and water sources (Liu et al.,

2006; Fu et al., 2008; Williams, 2008). The same fate also awaits Delhi, Mumbai and

Bangalore in India (Ha et al., 2009; Abul Hasan, 2010). The substances would then be

consumed by animals and human through the food chain, and thus increasing the risk of

cancer among the population (Jui-hui and Hang, 2009; Shen et al., 2009; Abul Hasan et al.,

2010). Prolonged exposure to heavy metals during e-waste recycling and recovery can also be

detrimental the health of the poorly protected workers which can lead to severe implications

such blood poisoning, urinary tracts and respiratory problems (Wang et al., 2010; Wang et al,

2011a). Furthermore, open incineration of flame retardant plastic to recover solder metals

from printed circuit boards (PCBs) releases harmful dioxin emissions into the atmosphere

(Widmer et al., 2005). However, well managed incineration of plastics from e-waste residues

can also become a potential alternative source of energy (Mohd Sidek et al., 2009).

e-waste is regulated under the 1989 Basel Convention. The Basel Convention was established

as a mechanism to environmentally manage the international trade and movement of

hazardous wastes and to minimize the generation of such materials which was rampant

during the electronic industrial surge during the 1970s and 1980s (Zoeteman and Krikke,

2010). The Basel Action Network (BAN) defines e-waste as “encompasses a broad and

growing range of electronic devices ranging from large household devices such as

refrigerators, air conditioners, cell phones, personal stereos, and consumer electronics to

computers which have been discarded by their users”. (Puckett and Smith 2002). Ratified into


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force in May 1992, the convention was signed by more than 170 countries (Lepawsky and

McNabb, 2009). Surprisingly, the United States, along with Afghanistan and Haiti have yet to

ratify the convention (Widmer et al., 2005).

The convention was developed as a framework to control “trans-boundary movement of

hazardous wastes and other wastes, provides standards through adapting technologies and

guidelines for environmentally sustainable management of hazardous wastes, capacity

building for enforcement and awareness raising cooperation with World Custom

Organization and cooperation with UNEP and other IGOs and other government initiatives”.

Under the convention, the government of the receiving country must be officially notified in

writing and its approval obtained of any proposed export of certain hazardous material

(Shinkuma and Huong, 2009). Being considered as hazardous and dangerous to humans and

the environment, e-waste is listed under the Convention’s List A of Annex VIII (Widmer et

al., 2005). Therefore, trans-boundary movement is strictly prohibited.

Although the Basel Convention restricts and reduces trans-boundary traffic and trade of e-

waste, large quantities of them were illicitly exported from developed countries to developing

and industrializing countries as second-hand EEE products destined for reuse or recycle or as

e-scraps for recovery of valuable and precious metals (Widmer et al., 2005; Lepawsky and

McNabb, 2009). Exports of second-hand electrical and electronic items and some e-waste

scraps destined for recycling are not regulated by the Convention. Therefore, many

unscrupulous exporters managed to undermine this loophole by re-labelling their e-waste as

such for the purpose of shipping their containerised consignments abroad. An amendment to

the Convention, known as the Basel Ban was later introduced to further prohibit e-waste trade

exports from developed to industrializing countries (Widmer et al., 2005, Arora, 2008). In

addition, the 1991 Bamako Convention was adopted by a majority of African countries which

“bans of import into Africa and the control of transboundary movement and management of

hazardous wastes within Africa” (Sinha-Khetriwal et al., 2006, p. 29)

4. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2001) defines EPR

as “an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is

extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle… It is a strategy designed to

promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life

cycles into the market price of the products”. According to Kojima et al. (2009), EPR aims at

“giving electronic appliance manufacturers and importers responsibility for the collection and

recycling of discarded electronic equipment” (p. 263), thus relieving the financial burden of

e-waste recovery and disposal off the public sector (Sinha-Khetriwal et al., 2009) and to

divert a significant amount of WEEE from the landfill (Ongondo and Williams, 2011). In

other words, the responsibility to treat and dispose of end of life e-waste as well as their

packaging will be shared with or shifted to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or

producers with the costs built into the product’s price, and thus, reducing the cost of

managing waste (Widmer et al., 2005; Quinn and Sinclair, 2006; Kojima et al. 2009). EPR

legislation is also intended as an incentive for producers to make design changes that reduce

waste (Walls, 2003) as well as a tool to achieve sustainable development (Kiebert, 2004).

EPR may consist one or a combination of the following,

1. Prolong product life, manufacturers must design and built durable products

which can last longer before they become obsolete. Although this will cause a


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decrease in the products’ market turnover and producers’ profitability, they must

also bear some social and humanitarian responsibilities to protect the environment

and human health. Future EE products must also be designed to ease reuse,

recovery and recovery (van Schaik and Reuter, 2010). Some electrical chain-

retailers are taking their own initiatives to prolong products’ life by offering

extended warranty schemes for products purchased from their outlets. For

example, for a small fee Seng Heng will repair their electrical products purchased

from their outlets during that warranty period which ran up to five years. If the

product is beyond repairs within the stipulated warranty period, the retailer will

replace and dispose the defective products for free.

2. Modular design to ease upgrading, disassembly and recycling, product

engineers and designers must also come up with products with modular design to

allows easy maintenance and faulty or broken parts replacement. Kuo (2010)

further advocates the collaborations between manufacturers and recyclers whereby

relevant parties will share materials, components and design information so that

reusable and recyclable items can be identified to allow easy disassembly and

recycled.

3. Take back program (TBP) incentives, voluntary (some countries enforced

mandatory) take back programme calls for the collection of WEEE by the OEMs.

Producers operate drop-off or collection locations for WEEE across the country.

Overall aim of TBP is diverting WEEE from the landfills. Consumers can return

their unwanted WEEE directly or by mail. Motives of TBP include reducing

production costs, enhancing brand image, meeting changing customer

expectations, and protecting aftermarkets (Toffel, 2004).

4. Replace materials used, manufacturers must also do further research to discover

the use of materials that pose less or no toxic danger during recovery, reuse,

recycle or disposal processes. The EU’s RoHS Directive for example, requires

producers to phase out hazardous substances in their products (Nordbrand, 2009).

Some companies such as LG, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Wipro and Infosys

taken proactive steps to reduce/eliminate the use toxic chemicals and materials

from their products (Abul Hasan et al., 2010).

There are two types of EPR—voluntary and mandatory and they “may be implemented

through a mixture of regulatory, economic and voluntary policy instruments” (Gottberg et al.,

2006, p.39). Today, several multi-national companies such as computer maker DELL and

Acer, and cellular telephone makers Motorola, Nokia and Apple are undertaking voluntary

EPR programs (Kojima et al. 2009).

4.1 The Malaysian E-waste Scenario

E-waste management in Malaysia is still in its infancy. In fact, the e-waste category only

evolved since 2005. Recent rapid economic, industrial and technological successes have

made Malaysia a huge and up-coming market for electronic gadgets with new products,

brands, models and upgrades are made available on a vigorously regular basis. Malaysians’

growing socio-economic and living standards in her quest to be an industrialised nation by

year 2020 also destined Malaysia to be a major future EEE producer, consumer and WEEE

generator.

In Malaysia, e-waste is categorized as scheduled waste under the code SW 110, First

Schedule, Environmental Quality (Schedule Wastes) Regulations 2005 (Priya, 2010), and


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managed by the Department of Environment (DOE) under the Ministry of Natural Resources

and Environment (MNRE). The main roles of DOE are pollution prevention, control and

abatement through the enforcement of the Environmental Quality Act 1974 (EQA 1974) with

all of its subsidiary legislations made thereunder. The Act is also “concerned with pollution,

which affects the beneficial use of the environment or is hazardous to the general use of the

environment (Md. Bakri et al., 2004, 146). The DOE defines e-waste as “waste materials

from the electrical and electronic assemblies containing components such as accumulators,

mercury-switches, glass from cathode-ray tubes and other activated glass or polychlorinated

biphenyls-capacitors, or contaminated with cadmium, mercury, lead, nickel, chromium,

copper, lithium, silver, manganese or polychlorinated biphenyl” (DOE, 2010).

Under EQA 1974, the Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulations 1989

(EQSWR 1989) applies the “cradle to grave” concept approach of waste management where

the generation, storage, transportation, treatment and disposal of scheduled wastes are strictly

regulated (Mohammad Shahnor, et al.). The EQSWR 1989 was later replaced by the

Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulations 2005 (EQSWR 2005) under which

the scheduled wastes are now categorized based on the type of waste rather than the source or

origin of the waste (Arora 2008; Junaidah, 2010, Mohammad Shahnor et al., 2011). Therefore,

disposal of any e-waste into landfills or waterways are strictly prohibited, and all recycling,

recovery and disposal activities must only be performed in environmentally sound manner at

prescribed or licensed premises.

The DOE also issued a set of guidelines on e-waste— Guidelines for the Classification of

Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment— in 2008 to assist waste generators, importers and

exporters and the relevant authorities involved in e-waste management to identify and specify

the different categories and characteristics of e-waste. However, these guidelines do not

inform the local consumers or the authorities on how e-waste or EOL products should be

managed, reused, recycled or reduced. Prior to the listing as e-waste under the EQSWR 2005,

WEEE in Malaysia was reported and managed as municipal solid waste through the

Department of Solid Waste Management (DSWM) under the Ministry of Housing and Local

Government.

As of 2009, the DOE have licensed 351 scheduled waste off-site recovery facilities which

includes 138 (39.3%) full e-waste management and recovery facilities or material recovery

facilities (MRFs) all over the country (Agamuthu and Victor, 2009). Full MRFs are those

with the capacity to recycle all part of electronic equipment they received, while those with

limited capability to recycle only a part of e-waste received are partial recyclers (Babington,

et al, 2010). The DOE have also placed hundreds of bins in public places nationwide for

collection of mobile phones and batteries with the aim to educate and enhance public

awareness about proper disposal and recycle of e-waste (Ramachandran and Renganayar,

2011).

In 2006 an estimated 1.103 million tonnes of scheduled waste was generated in Malaysia,

including 652,909 tonnes (59.2%) of e-waste. However, only 40,275 tonnes (6.17%) of the

generated e-waste was notified to the DOE to be recovered or disposed in licensed facilities.

In 2009, the country generated about 1.705 million tonnes of scheduled waste, of which

686,011 tonnes (40.2%) are e-waste but only 134,035 tonnes (less than 20%) were notified

(DOE 2009, 2010, 2011). Therefore, there is a great concern since a larger portion of the

projected scheduled e-waste was unaccounted for. It is believed that most of the generated e-

waste in Malaysia found their way to unlicensed recyclers and inappropriately recovered and


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eventually disposed in incinerators or solid waste landfills (Agamuthu and Victor, (2011).

Among the most popular methods of disposing household e-waste is by selling them to

second-hand dealers or scrap collectors since they offer better prices than licensed e-waste

managers or just simply throw them away as garbage (Junaidah, 2010). In addition, second-

hand EEE is a thriving and expanding business in Malaysia offering refurbished personal

computers, laptops, cellular telephones, television sets, air-conditioners and refrigerators at

extremely cheaper prices.

A pilot e-waste management and awareness program was initiated in the federal government

administrative centre of Putrajaya to collect end-of-life mobile phones, batteries and

accessories. It involves setting up collection bins in government offices, universities shopping

complexes and telecommunications companies (Arora, 2008, Babington et al., 2010).

Another pilot project to collect e-waste from household will be launched in cooperation with

the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA) in Penang (Ramachandran and

Renganayar, 2011). However, most of the projects received lukewarm response from the

public due to their poor awareness of e-waste management issue and its consequences (Hicks

et al., 2005; Pinto, 2008; Abul Hasan, 2010; Babington et al., 2010; Junaidah, 2010; Lim and

Haw, 2011). There are hardly any information, advertisements or public announcements in

the media regarding the dangers or the proper management and handling of e-waste in the

media. Also greatly lacking are the classifying, collecting and recycling infrastructures for e-

waste.

As one of the parties to the Basel Convention since 1993 (Kojima, 2005), importing or

exporting of e-wastes into and out of Malaysia is strictly regulated and would require prior

written approval from the Director General of the DOE, as required under the EQA 1974

before any consignment can be shipped into the country, where e-wastes are listed as code

A1180 and code A2010 under list A of annex A2010 under the list A annex VIII. However,

being a signatory of the convention did not stop Malaysia to be listed as a significant importer

of e-waste along with China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nigeria and Ghana for recycling and

recovery activities (Robinson, 2005; Puckett et al., 2005). Malaysia is also one of the transit

points of global e-waste movement.

Malaysia is also heading towards the implementation of the extended producer responsibility

(EPR) concept which implies that the responsibility of the producers, manufacturers,

importers and distributors for a product extends beyond the product’s life cycle for recycling

or disposal (Widmer et al., 2005; Agamuthu and Victor, 2011). Most of the EPR in Malaysia

are initiated voluntarily by a few multinational electronics firms such as Motorola, Nokia,

Dell, Apple and Hewlett-Packard as part of their global corporate responsibility policy

(Agamuthu, 2011). In addition, the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act (Act

672) also stipulated that manufacturer, assembler, importer or dealer can be held responsible

to collect and safely dispose of end-of-life WEEE products (Kojima et al., 2009).

5. Conclusion

The problem of e-waste is here to stay in the foreseeable future. The fast pace of e-waste

generation is fast outstripping the capacity of safe collection and disposal facilities, thus

forcing the stream to flow into primitively informal recovery sector and putting the

environment at extreme peril of pollution and contamination. Several studies have proven

that awareness on e-waste issues is still extremely very low. There are also the problems of

lack of actual data of e-waste generation and expertise, lack of ultramodern recycling plants


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and insufficient collection facilities. There are also insufficient political and financial wills to

solve the problem of trans-boundary movement of e-waste and it’s residual. A systematic

global approach must be formulated to stem the free flowing of e-waste across international

borders. Efforts should also be made towards the implementation of 3Rs strategy in EEE

manufacturing.

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

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