Informal sector e-waste recycling practices in Bangladesh

This study aims at examining the current practice of recycling e-waste in the informal sectors of Bangladesh and identifying the problems towards development of a system of hazard-free e-waste recycling in the country.

It is based on both primary and secondary data sources. The sample comprised of owners and workers of recycle shops located in different parts of Dhaka and Chittagong. Structured questionnaires were used for the recycle shop owners and workers to collect the information used in the study.

Findings of the study on the informal recycling sector revealed that the main source of e-waste is personal computers in Dhaka and ship breakage electronic products in Chittagong. Salient features of these recycling markets include inefficient recycling process, low wages, ignorance regarding hazards of e-waste, higher profit extraction and no government control or monitoring.

Recommendations such as mass scale awareness programmeas, development of legislation and infrastructure for hazard-free recycling, organising and extending producer responsibility, and providing incentives, were provided to develop the e-waste handling capacity of the country.