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Awareness of Individual Consumers Towards E-Waste Management in Chennai City, Tamil Nadu
Awareness of Individual Consumers Towards E-Waste Management in Chennai City, Tamil Nadu
Volume 11, Issue 9, September 2020, pp. 1932-1943. Article ID: IJM_11_09_184
Available online at https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=9
ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
DOI: 10.34218/IJM.11.9.2020.184
ABSTRACT
The electronic industry is the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing
industry (Radha, 2002; DIT, 2003). During the last few decades, it has assumed the role
of providing a forceful influence to the socio-economic and technological growth of
developing countries. The consequences of its consumer oriented growth pooled with
rapid e-product obsolescence and technological advancements are a novel
environmental challenge - the growing threat of 'Electronics Waste' or 'e-waste' which
consists of obsolete electronic devices. It is an upcoming problem as well as a big
business opportunity of growing significance, given the volumes of e-waste being
created and contents of both toxic and valuable materials with them. This study had
been undertaken to investigate the determinants of e-waste management in Tamil Nadu
using structured Questionnaire to collect data from the individual consumers along with
attitude and knowledge scale to assess their level of awareness on electronic waste
disposal and its management. Data has been collected during the month of April -
December 2017. The study concluded that most of the respondents were not aware of e-
waste management for which intensive awareness campaign has to be commenced by
the government for all the stakeholders especially individual consumers, as this is the
need of hour.
Key words: e-waste, consumers, e-waste management.
Cite this Article: A. Sivagami and G. Arun Senthil Ram, Awareness of Individual
Consumers Towards E-Waste Management in Chennai City, Tamil Nadu, International
Journal of Management, 11(9), 2020, pp 1932-1943.
https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=9
1. INTRODUCTION
The electronic industry is the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry
(Radha, 2002; DIT, 2003). During the last few decades, it has assumed the role of providing a
forceful influence to the socio-economic and technological growth of developing countries. The
consequences of its consumer oriented growth pooled with rapid e-product obsolescence and
technological advancements are a novel environmental challenge - the growing threat of
'Electronics Waste' or 'e-waste' which consists of obsolete electronic devices. It is an upcoming
problem as well as a big business opportunity of growing significance, given the volumes of e-
waste being created and contents of both toxic and valuable materials with them. The fraction
including copper, iron, gold, aluminium and other metals in e-waste is more than 60 percent,
while plastics include for about 30 percent and the hazardous pollutants consist about 2.70
percent (Widmer et al., 2005). Solid waste management, that is already an enormous task in
India, is becoming more complicated by the invasion of e-waste, particularly computer waste.
E-waste from developed countries get an easy way into the developing countries in the name
of free trade (Toxics Link, 2004) is complicating the problems further and associated with waste
management.
Figure 1
Source : Country level WEEE assessment study by the International Resource Group Systems South Asia Pvt. Ltd, 2005
3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Singh and Amin (2018) opined that electronic wastes is nowadays the fastest growing pollution
issue in a global context. This research provides the summary of E-Waste management in India
when compared to other countries. It covers the impact of recycling and management of E-
Wastes or human health, society, environment and risk assessment due to pollutants emitted
from e-waste recycling in the water, soil and air. Finally E-Waste Management Rules of India
and around the world was compared, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), shall be adopted for a
positive sustainable solution of E-Waste Management to reduce the ill-effects of Informal
recycling.
Agrawal and Mittal (2017) conducted a study to identify the reasons of the low collection
efficiency of household e-waste and to suggest about an organised market with its benefits for
proper handling of e-waste that suited to end-users needs. A total of 312 usable responses were
gathered from household end-users of EEEs of Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), India. The study
employed descriptive and regression analysis and found that end-users major problems and
concerns regarding their e-waste can be solved significantly by online e-waste market and the
present e-waste management system had to be changed significantly.
Sivathanu (2016) discussed the consumers’ awareness and preference towards the disposal
of e-waste. Survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire among 600 consumers in
Pune city. The exploratory factor analysis technique was deployed to identify the awareness
factors contributing to the consumer’s preference towards the proper disposal and management
of e-waste. The findings showed that awareness of toxic effects on human health, environmental
hazards, proper disposal of e-waste, and awareness of e-waste management by various
stakeholders and convenience of recycling were the five important contributing factors for
disposal.
6. RESEARCH DESIGN
In the present study, the researcher has applied sequential explanatory mixed methodology and
it has helped the researcher to blend different approaches and has allowed the researcher to
design apt research questions within the research context. The sequential explanatory mixed
methodology includes a multiple level strategy incorporating a two phase approach where
quantitative data is collected first from consumers through survey, followed by qualitative
research methods wherein focused group discussions were conducted among the informal and
formal recyclers and case studies were done among the NGO representatives, government
officials and manufacturing company.
Figure 2
There is a significant association between the socio-demographic profile viz. age, religion,
type of family, family size and occupation of the respondents with their perception towards e-
waste. In all these, since the calculated value (age =0.012, religion = 0.016, type of family =
0.021, number of persons in the family = 0.034, occupation = 0.025) is less than the table value
p=0.05, the null hypothesis is rejected and hence the research hypothesis is accepted which
indicates that there is a significant relationship between the socio-demographic profile viz. age,
religion, type of family, number of persons in the family and occupation of the respondents
with their perception towards e-waste. With regard to gender, social status, education, nature
of residence, type of house and monthly income of the respondents, they do not have any
association with their perception on e-waste. In all these, since the calculated value (gender =
0.960, social status = 0.730, education = 0.082, nature of residence = 0.081, type of house =
0.182 monthly income = 0.697) is greater than the table value p=0.05, the research hypothesis
is rejected and hence the null hypothesis is accepted which indicates that there is no significant
association between the socio demographic profile of the respondents viz. gender, social status,
education, nature of residence, type of house and monthly income of the respondents and their
perception towards e-waste.
Table 2 Association between Educational Qualification of the Respondents and their methods of E-
waste Disposal
Disposal Education of the Respondents Total
methods Illiteracy School Collegiate Profess- Higher
education education ional education
To friends
&relatives 3 (0.9) 6 (1.7) 7 (2.0) 5 (1.4) 3 (0.9) 24 (6.8)
Second hand
sales 4 (1.1) 3 (0.9) 9 (2.6) 6 (1.7) 2 (0.6) 24 (6.8)
Donated for
charity 2 (0.6) 2 (0.6) 1 (0.3) 2 (0.6) 1 (0.3) 8 (2.3)
Stored it for
long 10 (2.9) 26 (7.4) 86 (24.6) 12 (3.4) 3 (0.9) 137 (39.2)
Given to scrap
collector 9 (2.5) 20 (5.7) 61 (17.4) 13 (3.7) 4 (1.1) 107 (30.6)
Thrown away
4 (1.1) 20 (5.7) 18 (5.1) 6 (1.7) 2 (0.6) 50 (14.3)
Total 32 (9.1) 77 (22.0) 182 (44.0) 44 (12.6) 15 (4.3) 350 (100)
Chi-square test was used to test the above hypothesis of association of educational
qualification of the respondents with their e-waste disposal methods while buying the
household EEE goods taken for the study. The calculated value is 79.4 and table value at 0.05
confidence level and degree of freedom, value of chi-square is 24.9. Hence it is observed that
the calculated value is higher than the table value thus rejecting null hypothesis and accepting
alternate hypothesis. The study proves that there is a significant association between the
educational qualification of the respondents and their disposal methods of e-waste.
It can be observed from the table no.4.30 that the respondents did not have adequate
knowledge that e-waste must not be mixed with the other general wastes. As it is dangerous to
the environment, it must be handled in a separate way. They did not also aware that more use
of electronic products leads to more e-waste generation and hence it is necessary to adapt an
eco-friendly way of life and do not involve in the activity that is threatening the environment.
Hence the community needs to be given awareness on the generation of e-waste and its disposal.
Mean score is found to be 1.956 which means that most of the respondents did not have
awareness on e-waste, which may affect the attitude of the respondents towards generation,
separation and disposal of e-waste and its management.
Table 6 Oneway Analysis of Variance among the Respondents educational qualification and their
Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour towards E-waste
Statistical
n Mean S.D SS Df MS
inference
Knowledge of the Respondents on E-waste
Between Groups 170.677 4 42.669
No education 32 21.35 2.996
School education 77 19.83 4.052 F=3.043
Collegiate 182 20.30 3.540 .017<0.05
Professional 44 19.75 3.820 Significant
Higher education 15 19.68 4.466
Within Groups 5300.190 378 14.022
Attitude of the respondents towards E-waste
Between Groups 13.837 4 3.459 F=.426
8. TESTING OF HYPOTHESIS
Hypothesis 1 : There is a significant association between the socio-demographic profile of the
respondents and their perception towards e-waste. Chi-square test was used to test the above
hypothesis. Since the calculated value is less than the table value p=0.05 for age, religion, type
of family, number of persons in the family and occupation of the respondents, the null
hypothesis is rejected and hence the research hypothesis is accepted which indicates that there
is a significant association between the socio-demographic profile viz. age, religion, type of
family, number of persons in the family and occupation of the respondents with their perception
towards e-waste.
Hypothesis 2 : There is a significant association between the educational qualification of the
respondents and their disposal methods of e-waste. Chi-square test is used to test the above
hypothesis. It is observed that the calculated value is higher than the table value thus rejecting
null hypothesis and accepting alternate hypothesis. The study proves that there is significant
association between the educational qualification of the respondents and their disposal methods
of e-waste.
Hypothesis 3 : There is a significant association between the socio-demographic profile of the
respondents and their knowledge on e-waste. Chi-square test was used to test the above
hypothesis. Since the calculated value is less than the table value p=0.05 for age, education and
occupation of the respondents, the null hypothesis is rejected and hence the research hypothesis
is accepted which indicates that there is a significant association between the socio-
demographic profile viz. age, education and occupation of the respondents with their knowledge
on e-waste.
9. RECOMMENDATIONS
The general public may opt for upgrading their computers or other electronic equipments to the
latest versions rather than buying new equipments.
• Every user should take efforts to increase the usable life of electronic and electrical
appliances. EEE may be donated for reuse in order to extend the end of life (EoL) of
valuable products and sustain its life thus keeping them out of waste.
• The concept of 5 R's in waste management reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and residual
management may be propagated among the consumers. This study may evolve a sixth
R ie Refurbish. Hence concept of 6 R's may be advocated and practiced to the consumers
for extending the EoL of the EEE.
• Electrical and Electronic Equipment's may be chosen based on few toxic constituents,
RoHS compliance, recycling content, energy efficient, designed for ease upgrading,
minimal packaging, etc.
• The citizens may buy the products considering the responsibility of EPR of the
manufacturing companies ie. take back options.
• Consumer should segregate the waste at the source and should not mix up the e waste
along with municipal solid waste (MSW)
• Consumer should try to buy newer gadgets only by exchanging their older products if
it's not for the first time purchase.
10. CONCLUSION
Awareness of Individual consumers plays a key role in proper disposal of e-waste and its
management. The present study found that 32 percent of the consumers (out of 350) surveyed
in Chennai city had awareness on e-waste management. This study makes contributions to both
academic field and practical field. From academic view point, it contributes to the literature
existing in the area of consumer awareness, e-waste management and disposal. Future
researchers can also use this research to study the importance of variety of stakeholders
including formal and informal sectors and e-waste management techniques.
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