Introduction

Electronic waste (e-waste), also known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), is defined under the Basel Convention as electrical or electronic equipment that is waste, including all components, sub-assemblies, and consumables that are part of the equipment at the time the equipment becomes waste.¹ It refers to electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and components that have been discarded by its owners. It includes six categories of equipment, including—temperature exchange equipment (eg, refrigerators), screens and monitors (eg, televisions, laptops), lamps (eg, LED retrofit lamp), large equipment (eg, washing machines), small equipment (eg, electric kettle), and small IT and telecommunication equipment (eg, mobile phones, personal computers).² E-waste contains hazardous materials like heavy metals (eg, lead [Pb], mercury [Hg], cadmium [Cd]), flame retardants (eg, polybrominated diphenyl ethers [PBDEs], polybrominated biphenyls [PBBs]), and combustion byproducts (eg, polychlorinated dibenzodioxins [PCDDs], polyaromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs]) that can pose risks to human health and the environment if not properly managed.³ It has become one of the fastest-growing waste streams worldwide, with generation rising globally from an estimated 62 billion kg in 2010 to 96 billion kg in 2022, which is projected to rise up to 120 billion kg by 2030.⁴ Countries in Asia generate almost half of the e-waste produced globally⁴ and a large proportion of this comes from South Asian countries. Bangladesh is the third-highest e-waste generator in South Asia,⁵ with generation reaching to approximately 3 million metric tons in 2020⁶ and projections for rapid increases in the coming years due to the national mission of increasing digitalization.^7,8 Moreover, low- and middle-income countries like Bangladesh are major recipients of e-waste from high-income countries.^4,6,9

The substantial burden of electronic waste in Bangladesh necessitates its effective management to mitigate associated health and environmental hazards. The country recycles around 20% of total e-waste, which is second to India in the South Asian region.⁹ The majority of e-waste recycling and disposal in this part of Asia is handled by workers in the informal sector. The formal sector is mainly active in Sri Lanka, while informal workers predominantly handle e-waste in India and Bangladesh.⁹ These workers, who often operate in unhealthy conditions without proper training, protective gear, or environmental standards,¹⁰ dismantle, sort, and extract valuable materials from discarded electronics.⁶ People and the surrounding environment of informal e-waste recycling activity are at increased risk of developing different health problems.¹⁰ Particularly, workers involved in recycling processes are directly exposed to toxic chemicals produced from the decomposition of e-waste during their work. This may lead to numerous adverse health impacts.^10,11 Awareness of e-waste and adherence to safety protocols, like wearing suitable personal protective gear and washing hands after work or before eating, can effectively lessen these health risks.¹²

However, studies have found low levels of awareness and inadequate safety practices among e-waste workers in developing countries.^13,14 The types of chemical exposures from e-waste recycling have been linked to health problems like respiratory, gastric, and dermatologic ailments among workers in countries like Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Pakistan.¹⁰ In Bangladesh, a high frequency of neonatal death, perinatal complications, and thyroid, skin and respiratory problems have been reported in people living near e-waste recycling sites and among recycling workers.¹⁵ Having a better understanding of e-waste may lead e-waste workers to practice proper handling and protection measures¹² during e-waste handling, which could then reduce health hazards in this population.

Understanding the patterns and factors influencing awareness and safety practices among e-waste workers is important to improve health and safety conditions in this vulnerable population. But, there is a dearth of studies that explored these issues in Bangladesh. The available studies focused on electronic equipment sellers’ intention of recycling,⁸ consumers’ behavior regarding e-waste disposal,¹⁶ e-waste management scenario in the country^6,9 and physical harm associated with e-waste exposure.¹⁷ Therefore, this study aimed to assess e-waste awareness, safety practices, and their determinants among e-waste recycling workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The findings can help inform targeted interventions to increase protective behaviors and reduce chemical exposures among e-waste recycling workers in similar low-resource settings.

Methods

Results

Characteristics of study participants

A total of 236 e-waste collectors participated in the study. The mean age was 39.27 ± 9.36 years. Most participants were male (68.22%), completed primary education (54.24%), and were married (90.68%). The mean monthly family income was 13 173.73 ± 2488.59 Bangladeshi Taka (BDT). Nearly 40% were smokers. Most had >5 years of experience (58.90%) and received professional training (53.81%). All had break times, and most worked overtime (96.19%). The characteristics of the respondents are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Characteristics of the respondents.

Awareness, safety practices, and relevant factors among participants

Out of all, 83.47% knew about the meaning of e-waste. All of the participants (100%) identified cell phones, computers, televisions, and refrigerators as the source of e-waste. Slightly more than half (54.66%) knew that e-waste is harmful to the environment, and only 37.29% knew that e-waste is associated with health problems. All participants knew about effective mechanisms of e-waste management, and that e-waste can be segregated. But, only 28.39% knew about ways of e-waste minimization, 59.32% knew how to dispose of waste, 64.41% knew about the chemicals/substances released during the dismantling of e-waste, and only 79.24% knew how e-waste products/chemicals interact with the body (See  S1 Table for details).

Awareness of e-waste hazards was poor in 75% of participants and good in 25%. The proportion of awareness is shown in Figure 1. Female gender (P < .001), higher education (P < .001), higher income (P < .001), smoking (P = .001), ⩾5 years of experience (P < .001), and professional training (P < .001) were associated with good awareness. Table 2 describes the factors associated with e-waste-related awareness.

Figure 1.

Level of awareness and safety practice regarding e-waste among respondents.

Table 2.

Factors associated with e-waste-related awareness.

Of all, 75.42% used masks, 76.69% used safety glasses, 44.49% used safety boots, 39.41% used helmets, 63.56% used disinfectants for cleaning hands, and 76.69% used separate clothes for the job. A 100% of the participants wore personal protective equipment, used gloves, washed their hands before going home and before eating, and used soap to clean their hands (See  S2 Table for details).

Safety practices were poor in 42% of participants and good in 58%. The proportion of safety practices is shown in Figure 1. Female gender (P < .001), higher education (P < .001), higher income (P < .001), smoking (P = .045), ⩾5 years of experience (P < .001), professional training (P < .001) and working overtime (P = .005) were associated with good safety practices. The factors associated with good safety practices are described in Table 3.

Table 3.

Factors associated with e-waste-related safety practices.

Table 4 shows the adjusted odds ratios from multivariable logistic regression analysis exploring factors associated with good awareness and good safety practices regarding e-waste. Those with secondary education and above had significantly higher odds of good awareness (Odds Ratio [OR] 11.61, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 4.83-32.81) and good safety practices (OR 6.01, 95% CI 2.94-12.81) compared to those with primary education or less. Smokers had higher odds of good safety practices compared to non-smokers (OR 3.34, 95% CI 1.44-8.78). Those who received professional training were significantly more likely to follow good safety practices (OR 3.55, 95% CI 1.67-7.52).

Table 4.

Multivariable logistic regression exploring factors associated with e-waste-related awareness and safety practices.

The graph in Figure 2 depicts a scatterplot showing the relationship between awareness and practice scores. Safety practices showed a significant linear correlation with awareness scores among participants of this study (Pearson’s r = .71, P < .001). The trend (prediction) line shows a linear positive association, indicating that practice scores increased with awareness scores. The shaded area around the line covers 1 standard deviation above and below the average of the prediction.

Figure 2.

A scatterplot showing the association between awareness score and practice score.

Discussion

With increased urbanization, a free-market economy, increased purchasing power, and decreased prices of electronic products in this post-industrial world, the demand for e-products has increased enormously with the consequent generation of a large volume of e-waste.¹⁹ However, without proper handling, e-waste may generate toxic materials harmful to the body.²⁰ Hence, it is essential to have awareness among e-waste handlers about the sources and toxic potential of e-waste and its toxic potential. Moreover, the lack of proper safety practices may lead to exposure to the material through different routes and cause bodily harm to those involved in the e-waste recycling process. Therefore, we aimed to explore e-waste awareness and safety practices among a group of e-waste recycling workers in Bangladesh.

Only one-quarter of the e-waste recycling workers participating in this study had good awareness about e-waste. A similar low awareness among e-waste recycling workers was observed in Ethiopia.¹⁴ Kumari et al¹³ found that nearly 70% of electronic repair workers and 79% of scrap dealers did not know the meaning of e-waste. However, unlike them, nearly four-fifths of the participants knew the meaning of e-waste in this study. In our study, the question about awareness is asking about meaning intended to identify if the term “electronic waste” or “e-waste” was familiar to the workers. Notably, we found that many of the workers knew that they were working with wastes coming from various electronic devices but were not acquainted with those terms. We restricted the options for sources of electronic waste to the most common ones (ie, cell phones, computers, television, and refrigerators) based on the responses in the pilot study with an intention to keep the questionnaire short and convenient for the workers to respond to during their duty hours. All of the respondents were able to identify these sources as generators of electronic waste.

Our participants mainly lacked knowledge about e-waste minimization processes and e-waste-associated health problems. A concordant finding was elicited in the study by Singhal et al²¹ in India, indicating that e-waste recycling workers were less conscious about the health consequences of their work. In support of this point, Ohajinwa et al¹² found that e-waste workers have a significantly lower health risk awareness score compared to their counterparts in the same informal sectors. However, compared to e-waste workers in Ethiopia,¹⁴ our respondents had a higher awareness of the health and environmental risks of e-waste. In contrast, consumers of electronic devices appeared to show a higher awareness about the hazards of e-waste,²² which could be attributed to a higher level of education than e-waste recycling workers. However, consumers’ awareness about e-waste disposal was poor compared proportionally to that of e-waste workers in our study, indicating that awareness about e-waste disposal is rather learned through doing by the workers.

We also observed that nearly half of the participants were unaware of proper e-waste disposal methods and the environmental hazards associated with e-waste. This should be a concern as environmental pollution through improper disposal may risk the health²⁰ of all citizens in the locality. The recruitment of relatively less educated persons and lack of proper training may explain this lower level of awareness among e-waste workers of the company. This is supported by the fact that around half of our participants had only primary education and did not receive training.

Nearly three-fifths of the participants followed good safety practices. The major gaps in the safety practices were not using safety boots and helmets. Additionally, around one-quarter of the participants did not use masks and safety glasses. However, nearly all participants wore one or more of the personal protective equipment (PPE). In comparison, Singhal et al²¹ found that only 28% of the recycling workers used PPE, and half of the participants did not use face/mouth masks. The difference could be due to increased awareness about PPE after the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of safety practices in around one-quarter of e-waste workers in this study could be attributed to the lack of awareness and proper training of these workers during and after recruitment in the recycling center. Still, the nature of their work warrants more stringent measures to prevent bodily harm. Because, as Fischer et al¹¹ have shown that e-waste workers suffer work-related injuries like cuts and burns and health issues like red, itchy eyes, skin problems, and back pain significantly more often than bystanders. Promoting the use of safety boots and helmets could prevent accidental injuries to the head and foot, while masks and glasses could prevent harm to the eyes and respiratory tract. Hence, proper training should be ensured for all workers before they start their employment or immediately after they have started.

We observed that higher education was a significant determinant of good awareness and safety practices which underscore the importance of education for any occupation for that matter. Because, workers with a higher institutional education are significantly more likely to have the best safety perceptions and compliance.²³ On top of that, we found that professionally trained individuals were significantly more likely to do the safety practices than those without training. This aligns with the findings of Shoaib et al,²⁴ who observed that e-waste workers’ knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding occupational risk mitigation can be significantly improved through training on occupational safety. Our study also found a significant correlation between e-waste workers’ awareness and safety practices, which is concordant with the findings of Ohajinwa et al¹² in Nigeria.

One interesting counterintuitive observation was that smokers were significantly more likely to have good safety practices. On separate bivariate exploration, we noted that participants with longer experience and nearly all male workers were smokers. On the other hand, we found that male workers and workers with longer experience were more likely to have good safety practices. This probably explains the association between smoking and good safety practices in this study. One possible reason for the high proportion of smokers could be the perceived occupational stress experienced by e-waste workers. Occupation stress was found to affect nearly three-quarters of e-waste workers in a study in West Africa,²⁵ and stress is a commonly mentioned reason for smoking among people from various socio-economic strata.²⁶ Another reason could be low payment structures in e-waste recycling jobs in Bangladesh, with low payment being linked to smoking.²⁷

We observed that slightly more than half of the participants received professional training regarding the e-waste recycling process. This could imply a large gap in the initiatives for the development of skilled workers needed in this field.

Limitations and Strengths

Our study had several limitations. Firstly, it was conducted among a small group of conveniently selected workers, which might render the findings not generalizable to all e-waste workers in the country. But, we tried to ensure the representation of e-waste recycling workers from various segments of the factory. Secondly, we had to resort to participants’ responses regarding safety practices, raising the potential for information bias. However, this was one of the earliest studies to explore e-waste awareness, safety practices, and associated factors in the country. Our findings could inform relevant authorities to take necessary steps to increase awareness and safety practices, thereby reducing health risks associated with e-waste recycling processes.

Policy Implications

The study findings call for mandatory training programs on e-waste hazards and safety practices for workers, stringent occupational safety policies mandating proper use of PPE, and targeted awareness campaigns on e-waste risks and management. Furthermore, incentives should be provided for establishing formal recycling facilities that adhere to standards, incorporating e-waste topics in educational curricula, fostering multi-stakeholder collaborations, and continuous research and monitoring. Implementing these measures can significantly enhance e-waste workers’ awareness, promote safer practices, mitigate health risks, and improve e-waste management in Bangladesh.

Conclusion

This study, conducted among informal e-waste recycling workers in Bangladesh, found poor awareness and inadequate safety practices related to e-waste management. Higher levels of education and provision of training were independently associated with adequate safety practices during e-waste recycling work. The companies involved in e-waste recycling should consider these factors and ensure that well-structured education and training programs should be arranged to improve awareness and safety practices among e-waste workers. The implementation of stringent occupational safety policies and monitoring of e-waste facilities is also essential to mitigate health risks by maintaining adequate safety practices among informal e-waste workers. Further studies should focus on investigating the policy and organizational level factors influencing awareness and safety practices. Also, the environmental and health hazards that are a result of poor awareness and safety practices should be explored.