Heeks, R., Subramanian, L.,

From Digital Culture & Society

Introduction

E-waste is a growing issue that continuously adds harmful heavy metals to the environment, which in turn affects people within that geographical environment. Richard Heeks article Understanding E-Waste Management in Developing Countries: Strategies, Determinants, and Policy Implications in the Indian ICT Sector, focuses on about the emergence on ICTs (information communication technologies) in third world countries and how this new emergence has drastically affected the outflow of e-waste. The paper specifically focuses on organizations in these countries and how large medium and small firms have adapted either proactive or inactive methods with dealing with this waste.

Outline

In news today, there’s evidence of how everyday consumers continue to throw-out and re-buy information technologies such as cell phones and laptops. Richard Heeks highlights a point of view that has consistently been overlooked in the ICTs in third world countries. The article takes a few unorthodox approaches that many scientists overlook. The 3 main points Heeks looks at is the relative lack of knowledge about e-waste in developing countries; the general gap around locally created e-waste; and the specific absence of data on the largest e-waste producers: ICT bulk consumers. The main point that argues this is past research that has shown how e-waste is dealt with, acknowledged that most was shipped to different countries and very little was properly and environmentally friendly dealt with. While this focuses on bringing hidden evidence to light it raises the question of what do we do with e-waste if no country is willing to take any?

Literature review

Throughout the article Heeks examines internal and external factors describing the different incentives that big and small organization have in third world countries for safely or unsafely dealing with e-waste. For the external factors Heeks mentions four determents and they were: government regulation; Peer pressure from other organizations; specific client requirements and finally their corporate and brand image. While many of these represent positive and negative aspects the same is seen within the internal determinants listed and they are: organizational culture, organizational leadership and financial impact. These determinants represent all incentive purposes the company could positively or negatively benefit from e-waste. The information is relevant and very detailed, but a major weakness to these internal and external determinants is that majority of information taken to come up with this evidence is from north American countries, which does a poor job representing third world organizations and institutions. The purpose is to mimic what is beginning to happen with third world countries while drawing upon similar relevant information which Heeks does to fill the information gap that is missing for these third world countries.

Methodology

The methodology used built off of current information known, overall investigating the continuum of e-waste strategies and the model of determinants, therefore a qualitative research design was adopted in order to appropriate research on social phenomena (e-waste). The author focused most of their research around India because of the current rates they’re climbing, as well as their status as a country. With rates within this e-waste building country the usage rates are increases over 25% per year and other ICT subscriptions are growing at an even higher rate. To research and find relevant information that could given reasoning to these uprising numbers the qualitative information was gathered in two methods. The first was interviewing where people from different levels of organizations were talked to about the seven different determinants and how they specifically and individually are meeting they’re requirements. The second was more interviews but structured them very specifically to answer certain questions and asked to be backed using physical information such as specific documentation. These specific methods were chosen because they were previously used within the literature review and a strength that is exemplified in this instance is through replicating the literatures methodology to find results that may be comparable to northern first world countries e-waste.

Findings and conclusions

The results found were very interesting as many determinants fit the government regulations. What stood out was the client requirements which created the most, therefore although specific regulations are being met, in order for these third world firms to meet the demand of clients, their beginning to continuously add more e-waste to meet demands. Surprisingly the financial impact of disposing of e-waste wasn’t an issue at all, while corporate and brand image was very important. These final touched on determinants work hand in hand, because firms stated they were driven to keep the brand image. Many of the medium and smaller firms had slight issues, but the larger international ones were not affected by the costs which held little significance for them. Overall third world countries are beginning to adapt new ICT technologies and with that rise comes the issue of e-waste disposal in a safe, environmentally friendly methods. With this information e-waste in third world countries will slowly become a larger issue, but with the correct incentives most if not all organization functioning in these geographical locations will abide by sustainable e-waste disposal.