Electronic Waste Recycling in Dhaka City Material Recovery and Institutional Governance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/ajise.v5i3.8696Keywords:
Dhaka, E-Waste, Informal Sector, Material Recovery, Recycling, Urban GovernanceAbstract
In Dhaka, electronic waste is a growing urban management issue, alongside municipal waste systems, repair markets, informal collection, and emergent commercial recyclers. In this article, the evidence in a mixed-method thesis is restructured to explore collection practices, gaps in governance, environmental risks, and the economic logic of material recovery. The bottom-line work presents survey reports of questions to citizens, institutional and industry informants, field notes, and documents; it lacks a verifiable number of respondents or disaggregated survey estimates. The empirical explanation thus focuses on reported observations and considers numerical estimates as being calculated second. The thesis projects a range of e-waste production in 5.38-17.46 tonnes/day in the years 2012-2021; the calculation is not self-justifiable by using the provided information. A good example of price calculation is BDT 2,393,872.08 per tonne of printed circuit boards, in total, before recovery losses and expenditure and cannot be used on a tonne of mixed computers. Manual dismantling is reported in interviews and a volume of reported commercial collection of around 4 to 5 tonnes/day at a single operator. The results show that reclaimed opportunities are based on the separation of sources, safe dismantling, transfers that are traceable, and institutional obligations that can be enforced. There is a proposal of a staged city-wide system created between manufacturers, gatherers, recyclists, and city officials. The paper separates assumptions, empirical observations, and policy proposals to facilitate the cautious interpretation.
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