"People sit and work without any safety precautions such as gloves, masks and so on": Priti Mahesh, Toxics Link. Credit:Matt Wade Imran's job is to sort through heaps of electronic refuse and separate items of value that can be sold in one of Delhi's vibrant scrap markets. Sometimes he gets lucky and finds a component containing a precious metal. He takes those fragments himself to be melted down and the treasure extracted. "I know where the gold is," he says with a smile. Imran's alley is in Shastri Park a teeming, dirt-poor neighbourhood in Delhi's unfashionable eastern sprawl. This region one of the city's e-waste processing hotspots, although several satellite towns have also emerged as major e-waste centres. Some electronic waste in India is processed by large firms, including a division of Australian-based recycling giant Sims Metals Management. But the vast majority of the e-waste that ends up in Delhi is dismantled by small-scale, informal family businesses which operate from small shops and homes.

Imran Mansoori, sorting e-waste in Shastri Park, Delhi. Credit:Matt Wade Gadgets discarded by India's 1.2 billion people accounts for much of the e-waste processed in Delhi but there's concern a growing amount is arriving from other countries, particularly Western nations like Australia. A 2014 report by peak business group, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), said Delhi "is emerging as the world's dumping yard for e-waste". ​Priti Mahesh, the chief program co-ordinator with the environment group Toxics Link, says that despite restrictions on the importation of foreign e-waste to a lot makes its way to Delhi illegally. E-waste worker dismantles circuit boards at a small shop in Shastri Park, Delhi. Credit:Matt Wade "Government records show hardly any permission is granted for e-waste imports … but when we interact with the informal sector operators on the ground we find it is coming in huge quantities," she said.

Indian media reports claim regulatory loopholes mean second-hand electronic goods imported for reuse in India often end up in back alleys for illegal dismantling. People sit and work without any safety precautions such as gloves, masks and so on. Priti Mahesh, Toxics Link Delhi's long-standing markets for scrap metals, plastics and other waste materials have helped nurture the city's e-waste industry by making it easy for dealers to find buyers for what they extract. Cheap labour is another attraction. Assocham estimates Delhi alone has about 250,000 workers involved in processing e-waste. Pay rates vary but industry observers say women are typically paid about between $2.10 and $3.15 a day while men can earn up to $5.20 a day. Many of the workers are young, unskilled males in their late teens and early 20s who are unable to get jobs elsewhere. Assocham's 2014 report claimed about 35,000-45,000 children aged between 10-14 years were "engaged in various e-waste activities". The work is very hazardous work many electronic gadgets contain toxins such as lead, cadmium, chromium and flame retardants.

"Computers, televisions and mobile phones are most dangerous because they have high levels of lead, mercury and cadmium – and they have short life-spans so are discarded more [often]", said a recent statement by Assocham's chairman of Health Committee of the Indian industry group, Dr B.K. Rao. The rudimentary methods used by Delhi's small-scale operators mean basic precautions to control toxic emissions and discharges are ignored. "The fact that so much e-waste is recycled in the informal sector creates a huge burden in terms of environment and health," Mahesh says. "You have heavy metal contamination and other chemical discharges meaning your air water and soil is getting contaminated." The most common job for Delhi's e-waste workers is dismantling electronic gadgets and smaller components. But in parts of the city, and some nearby towns, small-scale operators undertake the more hazardous task of extracting metals using acid.

"In Delhi you can do it in backyards and get away with it," Mahesh says. Working conditions are poor – e-waste dismantlers typically work the street or in small, poorly ventilated rooms. "People sit and work without any safety precautions such as gloves, masks and so on," Mahesh says. "Those things are unheard of in these small operations." Often low torches are often used to melt lead soldering to separate materials attached to circuit boards. It is common for small children to be in the vicinity of toxic fumes and waste. The daily exposure to toxic fumes and other discharges is taking a terrible toll. A report on India's e-waste workers by Assocham, released in June, said about 76 per cent suffer from respiratory ailments like "breathing difficulties, irritation, coughing, choking [and] tremors" due to improper safeguards. It also claimed India's informal sector e-waste workers are normally unable to work after reaching 35 to 40 years of age because of poor health.

Mahesh, who has been campaigning on e-waste issues in India for nearly a decade, says that because most e-waste workers in Delhi are from marginalised backgrounds they have little education and simply don't understand the hazards. "They are being gradually and slowly poisoned," she said. Dropping off unwanted electronic gadgets at a council depot has become a familiar routine for many Australian households. The federal government's National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme has a target to recycle 80 per cent of available waste by 2026-27. While most gadgets collected for recycling are dismantled in Australia but some sub components, including most printed circuit boards, are sent offshore for further processing. The federal Department of Environment said about 14,700 tonnes of "dismantled e-waste fractions" (such as circuit boards) were exported from Australia last financial year. The largest recipients of Australia's exported e-waste were China, Indonesia, and Japan. So how many parts from Australia's discarded laptops and TVs end up in the back streets of Delhi? No one really knows.

A statement from the department said it had "no record of a permit ever being granted to export material fractions derived from e-waste to India." (although some e-waste components are not considered hazardous and do not require an export permit). But in an increasingly globalised world economy, strong regulations in Australia can't prevent its e-waste from being re-exported to second or third destinations, such as India. Assocham's 2014 report said the United States, China and the European Union were the biggest sources of foreign e-waste in India. But local media reports have named other Western nations, including Australia, as the source of e-waste being processed in Delhi. A recent investigation by journalist Rohit Inani, published in the journal Himal, said a report tabled in the Indian Parliament named Australia, along with Canada, South Korea and Brunei, as the source of an e-waste shipment seized in the south Indian city of Chennai in 2010. One independent assessment made in 2007 said at least 50,000 tonnes of foreign e-waste is processed in India annually. But Mahesh says the true amount is probably much higher. And as the number of electronic gadgets discarded across the globe escalates, Mahesh fears far more e-waste will find its way to poor neighbourhoods of Delhi to be dealt with. "Given that Delhi already has such a lot of infrastructure to process e-waste in the informal sector I suspect more will end up here," she says.

- with Ashwin Immanuel