Call for global action on e-scrap health issues

Global – Global action and a holistic approach are needed to tackle the effects of electronics recycling on children’s health, concludes a new study from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations University.

Claimed to be ′the first global survey′ of the impacts of electronics recycling on children, 139 epidemiologists, toxicologists, child health experts, industry representatives, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers responded to the online questionnaire.

Replies indicated ′a knowledge gap′ between dangerous toxins and the electronic products that contain them. For example, respondents rated mercury as the most dangerous substance to human health, but they did not rate energy-saving lamps – one of the main sources of mercury – as an equally dangerous category of e-scrap.

Of respondents′ e-scrap projects focusing on child health, the issues studied vary widely from chemical burns to cancer and growth retardation.

For more information, visit: www.who.int/en

Source: StEP Initiative