Abstract
For over a decade, media stories have exposed health and environmental harm caused by informal electronics recycling in less industrialized countries. Greater awareness of these risks helped inform regulations across the globe and the development of recycling standards. Yet, media depictions also shape public perceptions of informal workers and their role in handling electronic waste, or e-waste. This paper examines how mainstream print media describes the informal sector’s involvement in handling e-waste in India, especially as policymakers and other stakeholders currently grapple with how to integrate informal workers into formal, more transparent e-waste management schemes. This study evaluates depictions of the informal sector in print articles from both non-Indian and Indian news media outlets, employing controversy mapping principles and digital research tools. Findings may help inform stakeholder agendas seeking to influence public awareness on how to integrate informal workers into viable e-waste management solutions. Subsequent research based on these results could also help stakeholders understand the actors and networks that shape such media depictions. Results from the dataset show that most news articles describe informal workers negatively or problematically due to activities causing health risks and environmental damage, but usually do not discern which activities in the value chain (e.g., collection, dismantling, metals extraction) represent the greatest risks. Comparatively fewer articles portray informal workers positively or as contributing to e-waste solutions. Most articles also do not explain challenges that arise when working with informal workers. As such, media depictions today often lag behind policy debates and obscure multiple facets—good and bad—of the informal sector’s involvement in managing e-waste. Thus, an opportunity exists for policymakers, manufacturers, and advocacy groups to bridge the gap between current media representations of informal workers’ involvement in e-waste management and policy recommendations surrounding their role.
Highlights
Over the last 15 years, journalism has played an important role in exposing the health risks and environmental damage that occurs when our technology products land in places ill-equipped to safely recycle them
Both non-Indian and Indian articles generally agreed that the informal sector is “too large to ignore” and workers depend on processing e-waste for employment
Results from Indian articles demonstrate use of ‘rag pickers’ and ‘waste pickers’ to describe informal workers, indicating some crossover use of terms often germane to general waste collectors in India
Summary
Over the last 15 years, journalism has played an important role in exposing the health risks and environmental damage that occurs when our technology products land in places ill-equipped to safely recycle them. Many stories frame the issue as a consequence of Western consumption, where used or broken electronic devices from consumers in industrialized countries are exported to countries lacking protective measures—‘digital dumping grounds’—where scores of informal workers extract any value they can from discarded material [3,4,5,6]. Such coverage has informed global policy responses, including the development of an international recycling standard that restricts exports to avoid sending products to countries without sound processing infrastructure [7]. They try to avoid being connected to harmful informal activities, knowing that such negative publicity impacts public perception of their brands [8]
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