The document summarizes research into the occupational health burdens faced by e-waste recyclers. Through an ethnographic interview and facility tour at a formal e-waste recycling facility, the researcher learned about their practices and safety protocols. Research also included exposure studies of formal facilities that found health risks remain even with protections. Studies of informal recycling in Southeast Asia found high toxin concentrations and exposure risks, though more research is needed on vulnerable groups and long term impacts. In conclusion, e-waste recycling poses diverse health challenges for both formal and informal workers that more comprehensive research is needed to fully understand and address.

1. Health Burdens of Electronic Waste
Austin Pittsley
Purdue University

2. INTRODUCTION: E-WASTE PROBLEM OVERVIEW AND RESEARCH FOCUS
Electronic waste, or e-waste, presents one of today’s biggest environmental challenges.
Demand for electronics and electronic equipment has increased greatly within the past couple of
decades, especially in industrializing countries where economic development demands increased
use of such products by growing business sectors. Consumer electronics have likewise seen
increased demand. These demand increases, coupled with decreasing average lifespans of many
electronics, have led to e-waste becoming one the fastest growing waste streams, and the major
contributor of heavy metals to landfills. The diverse shape, size, and makeup, as well as the more
than 1000 toxic chemicals variably present in e-waste, present unique challenges to recyclers,
policymakers, and researchers (Babu et al. 2007). Definitions of e-waste confound many
attempts to draw an accurate and holistic picture of the problem. Current research of e-waste is
inadequate; almost all research into the health burdens of e-waste has been conducted among
Southeast Asia communities, and is short-term in length. In addition, studies of vulnerable
populations and e-waste facilities in emerging markets are lacking.
The focus of my research into the health burdens of e-waste was on the health burden
posed by the occupation of e-waste recycling. I wanted to answer the question of how e-waste
recyclers, both formal and informal, contend with the health and safety risks associated with
recycling e-waste. As my inquiry progressed, I also decided to compare and contrast the
differences between formal and informal e-waste recyclers, what unique health and safety
challenges they each face, and how they attempt to minimize, if at all, these challenges. My
research of formal e-waste recyclers consisted primarily of exposure evaluations conducted in
recycling facilities and informal, ethnographic interviews and observations within a local e-waste
recycling facility. Research of informal e-waste recycling facilities consisted of exposure and

3. review studies conducted in informal facilities in Southeast Asia, but that also addressed the
informal sector as a whole. In this paper I will summarize my research methods and the results I
obtained. I will then conclude with the main findings derived from my research.
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH METHODS
In the outset of my research I took an iterative-inductive approach, which means that I
began without a particular research question in mind, and allowed the research design to evolve
as it occurred (O’Reilly 2005: 3). This approach was necessary, I felt, because I was relatively
unfamiliar with the contemporary issues of health and e-waste. I decided to begin by conducting
interviews and observations with an e-waste recycler located in the Greater Lafayette area, Oscar
Winski. In line with the inductive approach I was taking, the interview I conducted was
unstructured. In other words, I knew the topic I wished to address (the health burdens of e-waste)
and had a few pre-written questions to guide me, but did not limit myself to such a plan and
allowed the interview to work more like a conversation (O’Reilly 2005: 116). The interview was
conducted in the afternoon of April 8th, 2015 with the general manager of the Oscar Winski e-
waste recycling facility, and was a joint interview with another anthropology student in the class.
The first half of the interview consisted of a tour of the recycling facility, where the manager
showed us points of interest and during which we were free to ask questions. We were also able
to gather observations, as the facility was processing e-waste at the time we were present. After
the tour and questions, the second half of the interview consisted of us discussing topics of
interest with the general manager in their office. The observations, information, and results from
this ethnographic interview are discussed in the results summary section below.

4. The remaining research, informed by the previous interview and observations, consisted
of occupational and environmental exposure studies. I’d decided to focus on the occupational
health side of e-waste; inquiring into how recycling facilities contend with the health burdens
posed by the various toxins present in e-waste, and what challenges still exist within the field.
This research consisted primarily of occupational health evaluations conducted in formal e-waste
recycling facilities in industrialized societies; typically the US and Europe. Government
agencies, such as NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health), as well as
university affiliated researchers, have delved into this research topic. I also wanted to include
informal e-waste recyclers, often termed “e-waste dumps”, into my research, as even these
provide income for those involved in informal e-waste recycling. As no informal e-waste
recyclers existed in the Lafayette area, I relied on environmental exposure studies, which were
typically conducted in Southeast Asia. These studies, in their current state, typically measure the
concentrations of various toxins associated with e-waste in communities local to informal e-
waste recycling facilities, as well as toxin concentrations at various points along identified
exposure routes. I chose to narrow my focus to the current gaps in research and future areas of
improvement in the study of these places, due to the fact that my project partner focused mostly
on the research already conducted. As with the interview results, the results and conclusions I
obtained from the research is discussed in the results section below.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Ethnographic Interview
The ethnographic interview conducted at Oscar Winski began with a tour of the recycling
facility and a general explanation of how it operates by the general manager. Oscar Winski

5. primarily receives and recycles commercial e-waste from local businesses that generate much of
it. They also accept e-waste from individual consumers, but only after a fee is paid. The facility
operates as a for-profit business, and is privately owned. Almost all of the recycling done at
Oscar Winski was hand-disassembly. This is simply when workers take apart e-waste products in
order to isolate the toxic from the benign, and the valuable from the valueless. When done with
proper techniques, this form of disassembly presents very minimal exposure risk because toxins
remain contained. After disassembling the products by hand, the various components are sorted
into numerous cardboard boxes organized throughout the facility. Motherboards, for example,
were all placed in a particular box. This organization of different components makes distribution
much more efficient, which is the fate of many of the products that end up at such a facility.
Oscar Winski does not use many of the heavy machines (shredders, glass-breakers, CRT-
breakers) that other e-waste recyclers do. Rather, they act as more of a middle-man between
consumers and businesses, and e-waste facilities that have the infrastructure for such processes.
The general manager cited health and safety concerns as the primary reason they chose to simply
ship certain components down the supply chain to other recyclers.
Health and safety measures at Oscar Winski consisted of administrative and personal
protection protocols. Workers had to follow specific guidelines when disassembling products so
that toxins contained within were not released. For example, many older electronics contain
cathode-ray tubes (CRT), which are infamous for the high amount of led contained inside of
them. While most CRT-containing e-waste was shipped out, some products had to be
meticulously disassembled to insure that the CRTs remained intact. Personal protection simply
consisted of work gloves worn by every worker. As long as administrative controls were
followed, the risk of exposure to harmful chemicals was minimal. According to the general

6. manager, the greatest health risks by far were physical injuries related to lifting heavy, bulky
objects, and vehicle-related injuries. Unlike many other e-waste recycling facilities, where large
machines like shredders are used that require high-powered fans and other engineering controls,
Oscar Winski only processes e-waste in ways that can be safely done given the controls they
already have in place. In such larger, more industrial facilities, engineering controls become
much more important in mitigating health risks.
After the tour of the facility, we were able to ask questions in a much more free-form
manner, which allowed me to explore other topics related to the health burdens of e-waste.
Through this part of the ethnographic interview, I learned about the perceptions some formal e-
waste recyclers have of their informal contemporaries and of future problems that may face the
e-waste recycling industry. When asked about why informal e-waste recyclers had little in the
way of health or safety procedures, the general manager of Oscar Winski believed that a
combination of market dynamics and the lack of a regulation framework were to blame. Markets
will move e-waste to where there is the least regulation, and where people will make a living
from recycling e-waste, informal or formal. “Leveling the playing field” by instituting
international regulatory statutes would solve the problems associated with informal e-waste
recyclers, according to the interviewee. He also expressed a many concerns about future
challenges the industry of e-waste recycling may have the face. First was the fact that many
consumer electronics are becoming smaller, more compact, and more electronically dense. This
makes hand-disassembly and other disassembly techniques that try to mitigate toxin-release
much harder to accomplish. The decreasing size of consumer electronics may cause such safe,
simpler processes to become unviable. Second, many manufacturers looking to improve the
functionality of electronics (arguably all manufacturers) are incorporating new materials into

7. their products. The pace of this innovation is much faster than the pace of regulation. Little
prevents a new material from entering the waste stream until its toxicity is tested after the fact.
The burden of understanding the risks and necessary precautions of these new materials ends up
falling on the recyclers themselves. Finally, in contrast to the newer, potentially dangerous
materials being used, some manufacturers are attempting to create less toxic electronics by using
more plastic and other benign materials. While this may greatly reduce the products overall
health burden, it often times also reduces the value of the materials that can be recycled from it.
Unfortunately, many of the materials that are harmful to human health are also valuable, and
make private e-waste recyclers like Oscar Winski viable business ventures.
Occupational & Environmental Health Research
While much of e-waste’s health burden derives from informal recycler practices, formal
e-waste recyclers aren’t entirely devoid of responsibility for the overall health burdens. Even
formal e-waste facilities with health and safety protections deemed adequate have been shown to
expose workers to toxic metals (Julander et al., 2014). This particular study compared air sample
and blood sample concentrations of numerous heavy metals from e-recycling and office workers.
They found that e-recycling workers were exposed to much higher concentrations of airborne
heavy metals, and that blood concentrations of such heavy metals were higher. Even when
“proper” health and safety concentrations are followed, a health burden still exists for e-waste
recyclers. Record-keeping is another challenge facing formal e-waste recyclers. Adequate
records are needed to record past exposure levels and health problems, which allow regulators to
monitor exposures overtime and ensure regulations are followed. However, this does not always
occur. An exposure evaluation report conducted by NIOSH (Page et al. 2008) at four state-
owned e-waste recyclers found that some of the facilities had inadequate records that prevented

8. evaluators from completing assessing health related problems at these facilities. Descriptive
accounts of the facilities’ early years also indicate that exposure levels were probably above
occupational limits.
Research of informal e-waste recyclers has primarily taken the form of environmental
exposure studies and has overwhelmingly been conducted among communities in Southeast
Asia. A systematic review of numerous studies attempting to measure the health effects of e-
waste found good evidence that e-waste presents a huge health burden to populations exposed to
it (Grant et al. 2013). This review also found that toxins released from informal e-waste
recycling were in high concentrations at great distances from the actual recycling site, suggesting
that toxins released may travel along water and food chain routes. Numerous gaps in the research
were also found by this study. Few long-term and longitudinal studies have been conducted on e-
waste exposure, despite the fact that many populations are exposed for long durations. Many
potentially dangerous chemicals found in e-waste also have not been adequately studied in order
to assess their health burden. Potential synergistic effects of the wide variety of chemicals found
in e-waste likewise have not been adequately studied. Finally, certain vulnerable populations and
areas of the world where informal recycling occurs have received little attention. The risks posed
to pregnant women and children from e-waste are unique, but no studies have focused
exclusively on these groups. Likewise, most research has focused on Southeast Asian e-
recyclers, but little has been conducted on other informal e-recyclers in other parts of the world
(Frazzoli et al. 2010).

9. CONCLUSION
The problem of e-waste is that it isn’t just one problem. Although I’ve only focused on
one of these problems, the occupational health burdens of e-waste, even I have found that no one
single conception of the problem or solution exists. A wide variety of e-waste recyclers exist.
Among formal e-recyclers, different health risks exist depending on what the facility is willing to
handle. Facilities like Oscar Winski, for example, mitigate the health burden of e-waste by only
handling what they are safely able to recycle. Other formal facilities use heavier machinery that,
while capable of more safely handling more dangerous e-waste components, must still employ
numerous engineering, administrative, and personal protective measures. In addition to dealing
with the particular health burdens of their recycling processes, e-waste recyclers (private ones at
least) must contend with market forces and the dynamics of supply and demand in order to
remain viable. Informal e-waste recyclers are overall vastly under-studied. Most research is
short-term in length, confined to Southeast Asian communities, and has yet to study the burdens
of particularly vulnerable populations. These factors obscure efforts to assess the true extent and
impact of e-waste on the health of populations. In conclusion, the health burdens of e-waste
present a problem that is growing too fast and complex for us to analyze, let alone prevent.
While more research is needed to fill in theses growing research gaps, e-waste still must be
addressed at its source, electronics producers and consumers, if health burdens are ever to be
totally dealt with.

10. Works Cited
Babu, B., et al. 2007. “Electrical and electronic waste: a global environmental problem”. Waste
Management & Research 25:307-18.
Frazzoli, C., et al. 2010. “Diagnostic health risk assessment of electronic waste on the general
population in developing countries’ scenarios”. Environmental Impact Assessment
Review 30:388-99.
Grant, K., et al. 2013. “Health consequences of exposure to e-waste: a systematic review”.
Lancet Global Health 1:350-61.
Julander, A., et al. 2014. “Formal recycling of e-waste leads to increased exposure to toxic
metals: An occupational exposure study from Sweden”. Environmental International
74:243-51.
O’Reilly, Karen. 2005. Ethnographic Methods. New York, NY: Routledge.
Page, E., et al. 2008. “Exposure to Hazardous Metals During Electronics Recycling at Four
UNICOR Facilities”. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.