‘Protect children from waste’

Health Watch

EFFECTIVE and binding action is urgently required to protect millions of children, adolescents and expectant mothers worldwide whose health is jeopardised by the informal processing of discarded electrical or electronic devices, according to a report.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general, said with mounting volumes of production and disposal, the world faced what a recent international forum described a “mounting tsunami of e-waste putting lives and health at risk”.
“In the same way the world rallied to protect the seas and their ecosystems from plastic and microplastic pollution, we need to rally to protect our most valuable resource – the health of our children – from the growing threat of e-waste,” he said.
“As many as 12.9 million women are working in the informal waste sector, which potentially exposes them to toxic e-waste and puts them and their unborn children at risk.”
According to WHO, more than 18 million children and adolescents, some as young as five years of age, are actively engaged in the informal industrial sector, of which waste processing is a sub-sector.
Children are often engaged by parents or caregivers in e-waste recycling because their small hands are more dexterous than those of adults.
Other children live, go to school and play near e-waste recycling centres where high levels of toxic chemicals, mostly lead and mercury, can damage their intellectual abilities
Children exposed to e-waste are particularly vulnerable to the toxic chemicals they contain due to their smaller size, less developed organs and rapid rate of growth and development.
They absorb more pollutants relative to their size and are less able to metabolise or eradicate toxic substances from their bodies.
Workers, aiming to recover valuable materials such as copper and gold, are at risk of exposure to over 1,000 harmful substances.
These substances include lead, mercury, nickel, brominated flame retardants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
For an expectant mother, exposure to toxic e-waste can affect the health and development of her unborn child for the rest of its life.
Potential adverse health effects include negative birth outcomes, such as stillbirth and premature births, as well as low birth weight and length.
Exposure to lead from e-waste recycling activities has been associated with significantly reduced neonatal behavioural neurological assessment scores, increased rates of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, behavioural problems, changes in child temperament, sensory integration difficulties, and reduced cognitive and language scores.
Other adverse child health impacts linked to e-waste include changes in lung function, respiratory and respiratory effects, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damage, impaired thyroid function and increased risk of some chronic diseases later in life, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.