Awareness and Disposal Practices of E-waste with Reference to Household Users in Kochi City
P.S. Anusree1, P. Balasubramanian2
1P.S. Anusree, Ph.D Research Scholar, Department of Commerce and Management, School of Arts and Sciences, Amrita University, Kochi (Kerala), India.
2Dr. P. Balasubramanian, Head and Asst. Prof (SG), Department of Commerce and Management, School of Arts and Sciences, Amrita University, Kochi (Kerala), India.
Manuscript received on 03 June 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 28 June 2019 | Manuscript Published on 04 July 2019 | PP: 293-299 | Volume-8 Issue-1S4 June 2019 | Retrieval Number: A10510681S419/2019©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Exponential growth of electronic industry over the years has generated a mammoth challenge in the form of obsolete electronics or e-waste. Junk electronics pose serious threat to health and environment through toxic pollution. It also adds to space constraints leading to creation of massive dumps and illegal trans-boundary movement within economies. The evolving consumer of today must be aware of the impacts of his purchase practice, especially in the case of electronic products. Moreover, the electronic scrap disposal methods adopted by them greatly influence the magnitude of carbon footprint on the ecology. A socially responsible individual ensures that he channelizes the scrap through appropriate channels and does his bit in conserving the natural resources. This paper is an attempt to study the awareness and practice of the household users of electronic products with regards to obsolete or end-of-life electronic items. The study is based on primary data consisting of thirty samples collected from Kochi City. In the process of data collection it was observed that majority of the respondents did not have required awareness about the concerns with used or end-of-life electronics. Hence, the survey process turned out to be rather informative to the respondents. The collected samples have been analyzed through simple percentage analysis. The study found that disposal facilities were not appropriately available to the households because of which they had to depend on junk collectors to get rid of unused or obsolete electronic products.
Keywords: E-waste, Disposal, Environment, Household Users, Awareness.
Scope of the Article: Context Awareness and Personalization, Autonomic and Trusted Computing