THE JEOPARDIZED SITUATION OF ELECTRONIC WASTE IN BANGLADESH: CAN CUSTOMIZED POLICY APPROACH SOLVE THE CHALLENGE?

Electronic waste (e-waste) is one of the fastest-growing pollution problems worldwide given the presence if a variety of toxic substances which can contaminate the environment and threaten human health, if disposal protocols are not meticulously managed. In Bangladesh almost 2.7 million metric tons of e-waste generated per year. Of this amount only 20 to 30 percent is recycled and the rest of the waste is released in to landfills,  rivers, drains lakes, canals, open spaces which are very hazardous for the health and environment. Since Bangladesh is in the stream of rapid technological advancement, it is seldom to take necessary steps to avoid the future jeopardized situation because of e-waste. The current practices of e-waste management in Bangladesh suffer from a number of drawbacks like the difficulty in inventorisation, unhealthy conditions of informal recycling, inadequate legislation and policy, poor awareness and reluctance on part of the corporate to address the critical issues. The paper highlights the associated issues and strategies to address this emerging problem, analyses the policy and its gaps. Therefore, this paper also suggest that e-waste policy development may require a more customized approach where, instead of addressing e-waste in isolation, it should be addressed as part of the national development agenda that integrates green economy assessment and strategic environmental assessment as part of national policy planning. Finally this work also suggests some alternative strategies and approaches to overcome the challenges of e-waste.


INTRODUCTION
Electronic waste or e-waste -waste from electronic and electrical equipment is a rapidly growing market, with 72 billion tons estimated to be generated annually worldwide by 2017 [Arora R., 2008]. Obviously, the digital (r)evolution has resulted in a significant increase in the quantity of e-waste but the quality of the waste has also changed with the use of hazardous substances. With massive growth of electronics and hardware sector, the demand of the electronics products has been enhanced manifold. Faster change of features in the electronics devices and availability of the improved products forcing the consumers to dispose the electronics products rapidly. This has caused generation of e-waste alarmingly.
Like other parts of the world, Bangladesh is also facing serious crisis due to growing generation of e-waste. The main challenge in Bangladesh is to create awareness of the environmental, social and economic aspects of e-waste among the public, consumers, producers, institutions, policy makers and legislators. It is observed in recent years that large volume of e-waste is being exported from western countries to Asian countries for disposal. It seems the recycling business in western countries is becoming economically non-viable due to rising cost of manpower and availability of input materials for running the plant in full capacity. The western countries are, therefore, compelled to find out alternative destinations for disposal, where the labour cost is comparatively low and the environmental laws are not enforced so strictly.
E-waste is hazardous in nature due to presence of toxic substances like Pb, Cr, Hg, Cd and flame retardants (polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenylethers etc.). E-waste disposal mixed with solid municipal waste is posing a greater threat for environmental degradation in the developing countries like Bangladesh, where formal recycling technology is not available and non-formal operators are extracting precious metals through crude means for easy money. The extraction of metals in nonformal units is carried out by dipping printed circuit board (PCBs) in the acidic/alkaline solutions and heating/burning of PCB. These processes are harmful to the workers and to the environment, which are the major concern of e-waste management in developing countries like Bangladesh [Agamuthu P., Victor D., 2011].
While the human rights and environmental concerns emanating from the transboundary movements of toxic wastes and hazardous products have attracted considerable attention from scholars, activists, governments, and multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, the relatively newer dimension to this problem relates to electronic wastes otherwise referred to as 'e-wastes' in trendy parlance, which has received paltry scholarly attention thus far. Apart from urging a reconceptualisation of the electronic waste dimension to the global waste challenge in regulatory and trade terms, the underpinning thrust of this essay is that developing countries should find pragmatic ways of handling electronic waste because of their often toxic and hazardous substances that pollute the environment, expose people to diseases, and invariably violate a whole range of human rights.

GLOBAL SITUATION OF E-WASTE
In the 1990s, governments in the European Union (EU), Japan, the United States (US) and some other industrialized countries began to tighten the regulatory framework against electronic wastes and simultaneously commenced the setting up of electronic waste retrieval and recycling systems. However, not all industrialized countries had the capacity to deal with the steep quantity of the electronic and electrical wastes they generated.
Consequently, therefore, such industrialized countries began exporting their predicament to developing countries where laws to protect workers and the environment are nonexistent, inadequate or unenforced. It was also cheaper to 'recycle' waste in developing countries, as for instance, the cost of breaking down or recycling of electronics in the US is 26 times more than the cost in Nigeria. In this most populous African country, labour costs are much lower while safety and environmental regulations are ignored or corruptly negotiated. Krueger described the general scenario this way: 'in the late 1980s the average disposal cost for one tone of hazardous waste in Africa was between $US2.50 and $US50, while in the OECD it ranged from $US100 to $US2000 [Babu et al. 2007]. ' Electronic waste (or 'e-waste') is the term used to cover all types of electrical and electronic equipment that has or could enter the waste stream. Although electronic waste is a general term, it has assumed technical usage as a term covering any household or business item with circuitry or electrical components with power or battery supply. These may consist of electrical and electronic equipment and accessories that are non-operational or whose life cycles are extinguished. Obsolete As would be expected, a substantial portion of the demand for second-hand electrical and electronic equipment in the developing world is met by discarded equipment from government agencies and companies. In Kenya, for example, this source stream of electrical and electronic equipment was found to contribute up to twenty percent of the stock of second-hand ICT equipment in the country as of 2009. Much of the remaining demand for secondhand electrical and electronic equipment in developing countries is met by imports from developed countries [Robinson, B., H., 2009]. However, estimates from Greenpeace International, 2008, an independent international nongovernmental organization that acts to transform attitudes and actions in order to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace indicate that between 25 and 75 per cent of second-hand electrical and electronic equipment imported into Africa arrived in an unusable condition, beyond repair. In summing up this segment, it becomes discernible that the electronic waste problem is a global concern because of the nature of the generation, distribution and dumping of wastes in the globalised world economy [Mo, H., Wen, Z., & Chen, J., 2009]. While it is hard to calculate overall amounts of electronic wastes, it is beyond question that hefty quantities end up at locations where dispensation takes place at very rudimentary levels. This engenders concerns in relation to capacity building, resource efficiency and also the shorter and longer term apprehensions about the perils to human beings and the environment. Certainly, there is a lengthy and often complex sequence of processes in the electronic waste menace, starting from an idea that an info-tech expert has conceived for making a new invention, then the fabrication of that product, leading to its commercialization, procurement and, ultimately, it's dumping by the consumer after the product's life span or usefulness. These are the issues that throw up the questions around waste management beyond its confinement as a legal issue simpliciter [Xianbing, 2006].

STATUS OF E-WASTE IN BANGLADESH
Bangladesh is developing with the increasing of technology usage. Sustainable and safe use of technology is a big challenge for Bangladesh. The wastes from electronic goods come to Bangladesh as curse. People consume and dump the useless products without any consideration of environmental damages and sustainability. Moreover, every year significant number of scrap ships is imported to Bangladesh by importer legally and/illegally. These ships are broken in ship breaking yard located mainly in southern part of Bangladesh. During ship breaking, many heavy metals and toxic pollutants emit to environment and oil spills to land and water bodies. As Bangladesh has binding to import scrap ships, thus illegal import and trade off of e-waste is happening by importer to make profit and hence, e-waste vulnerability of Bangladesh is increasing. Bangladesh is one of the highly e-waste generating countries in the world. Almost 2.7 million metric tons of e-waste is generated per year ( Fig. 1), in contrast, it is stated in the report "From e-waste to Resource" that in the world volume of e-waste generated per year is 20 million metric tons. However, according to UNEP projections, 2010, an estimated 20-50 million tons of e-waste is being generated annually in the world. According to yearly generation figures, it is clear that ship breaking yard occupied highest (2.5 million metric tons) position. Wastes from television sets have taken the second highest (0.182 million metric tons) position with an exponentially increasing rate (Fig. 2 According to an estimate, more than 500 thousand computers were in use in 2004 and this number has been growing at 11.4 per cent annually. Even if the figure of 500 thousand were taken as the baseline, that many PCs would contain approximately 15.323 tons of . The quantity of e-waste (PC and Cell phone) to be generated has been estimated by following two methods suggested in. The first method, Market Supply Method A. (MA) assumes that the average lifetime of an electronic product is approximately five years and after that these are discarded and come to the waste stream. The second method, Market Supply Method B (MB) assumes that all the products are not disposed at the same time; rather they are disposed in varying quantities over successive years. Here weighted average method is used to show the product disposal trend. For PCs the growth rate is considered to be 11.4 per cent and for cell phones a 100 % growth rate is considered annually.

TRANSBOUNDARY ISSUES OF E-WASTE: SOCIAL AND LEGAL CONCERN
The demand for used electrical and electronic equipment within developing countries runs in tandem with the demand for non-serviceable or near end-of-life products. Trans-boundary shipments of electronic wastes occur due to costly environmental and social standards for electronic wastes recycling in, for example, European Union (EU) countries, the US and Japan. Against the backdrop of the 'Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY)' syndrome, for instance, waste disposal facilities are shrinking in most industrialized countries as a result of stricter environmental regulation, yet, such wastes are ending up as illegal shipments which are effectively liberating developed countries of the electronic wastes problem, at the expense of the human residents in the recipient developing world [Nnorom, I.C. and O. Osibanjo, 2008].
When the problem of this so called electronic wastes 'dumping' began to gain attention, it was Bangladesh who were one of the main receivers. In recent times, however, studies are finding that such shipments were being exported beyond Asia to some African countries, with high volumes received by Bangladesh, Ghana and Nigeria in particular.
The scale of these illegal transboundary shipments of electronic wastes is growing; estimates from 2010 indicate that 40 percent of electronic wastes from Europe alone are being exported to Asia and Africa [BAN, 2006]. In Nigeria, for example, estimates of the number of computer imports found to be non-functioning range from 75 to 95 per cent of each shipment [Herat S., 2008]. Not a few commentators have identified the growing phenomenon of hazardous and electronic wastes dumping in developing countries from the industrialized world as a direct consequence of economic globalisation. While globalization has indeed being identified as transforming trade, finance, labour, migration, technology, communication, and governance, there can be no shying away from the reality that one of its negative collateral effects since the 1990s has been the reduction in the power of national governments in the face of global free market and technological advancements that have taken their regulation out of the reach of many governments.
While international economic and financial integration is rapidly occurring as a result of increased trade and capital, technology and information flows, the production and sale of consumer goods vis-á-vis up-to-date technology is heavily and disproportionately weighed against developing countries. And even though technological diffusion and advances in communications are occurring quite rapidly, very vast portions of the developing world are left out. This is the sort of atmosphere that leaves the developing world in the dire strait of incapacity to outrightly and effectively uproot the menace of dumping of wastes within their respective jurisdictions.
Although celebrated as the offshoot of the free market system that has characterized economic and trade liberalization since the 1990s, the commodification of waste, whether legal or illegal, cannot be 'free trade' in the fullest sense, but smacks of some form of oppression -predation, exploitation, or coercion -unquestionably translating the so-called economic liberation theory of free market and globalization into nightmarish experiences for environmental and human rights protection in developing countries like Bangladesh. Environmental justice theorists have extended the philosophical issues here by contending that treating others fairly also involves recognizing their membership in the moral and political community, promoting the capabilities needed for their functioning and flourishing, and ensuring their inclusion in political decision-making. Moreover, they maintain that distribution, recognition, capabilities, and participation are interrelated and interdependent -one can therefore not pursue one dimension of justice in isolation.
Other writers have posited that within the context of toxic waste dumping, those who end up living closest to dumping sites and thus bearing the greatest adversities of toxic wastes are the poor, the homeless, street children and other vulnerable people at the lowest rungs of society. This reality manifests the deeper social problem of the environmental injustices that serve as catalysts for the human rights violations associated with the dumping of wastes.

ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHT CONCERN OF E-WASTE
Several scholars across geo-cultural divides have argued that linking human rights with environmental issues creates a rights-based platform to environmental protection that places the people harmed by environmental degradation or pollution at its centre. The articulation of the rights of human beings thus creates the opportunity to secure those rights through juridical bodies at the international and domestic fora. This has particular implications for those human groups that are most vulnerable to environmental harm and least able to access political remedies within their own meager means. The connectivity between human rights and the environment reveals that human rights abuses often lead to environmental harm, just as environmental degradation or pollution often causes egregious human rights violations. With more than one hundred national constitutions recognizing and protecting the right to a safe, clean and healthy environment, and virtually all international and regional human rights treaty monitoring bodies also recognizing the direct linkage between environmental harm and human rights norms, it is safe to posit that interjecting the electronic waste discourse from a rights-based perspective at this juncture is neither out of place nor abstract [Terazono A., 2006]. In her seminal work produced on behalf of the World Health Organization in 2002, Shelton had proffered sweeping validation for the inclusion of a rights-based approach to every discourse on environmental health in the following words: First, the emphasis on rights of information, participation, and access to justice encourages an integration of democratic values and promotion of the rule of law in broad-based structures of governance. Experience shows better environmental decision-making and implementation when those affected are informed and participate in the process: the legitimacy of the decisions exercises a pull towards compliance with the measures adopted. Another benefit of a rights-based approach is the existence of international petition procedures that allow those harmed to bring international pressure to bear when governments lack the will to prevent or halt severe pollution that threaten human health and well-being. In many instances, petitioners have been afforded redress and governments have taken measures to remedy the violation.
In other instances, however, the problem appears to be the result of a combination of governmental lack of capacity and lack of political will. The pollution may be caused by powerful enterprises whose business and These people are exposed to the hazardous substances through dermal exposure, dietary intake, dust inhalation or particle intake, with the latter two sources found to be particularly significant [Ahmed FRS, 2011]. Other expert studies state that exposure to chemicals from e-wasteincluding lead, cadmium, mercur y, chromium and polybrominated biphennyls -could injure the human brain and nervous system, distress the kidneys and liver, and lead to birth defects.

CONFRONTATION OF E-WASTE
The e-waste development trends indicate that a key advantage of Bangladesh is the development of e-waste related policy including waste reduction initiatives such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). This legislation provides Bangladesh with the policy framework to tackle e-waste issues in a formal manner as well as fast-track the lessons learned from developed countries in e-waste legislation and management. Nevertheless, e-waste policy development may also pose a disadvantage if it is adopted from developed countries without customizing it to local socio-economic conditions and challenges. Furthermore, some developing countries are considering adopting technologies that have been implemented in developed countries where proper infrastructure is in place to manage e-waste. However, the economic, environmental and social situation in a number of these developing countries are different compared to the developed countries, hence, the need for adapting, implementing, and scaling up appropriate technologies that are more suited to the local conditions. This is consistent with studies on applying EPR policies in developing countries which have discovered certain challenges and limitations in EPR policy implementation. The first challenge is for the governments to collect funds from producers or imports if the goods are smuggled into the country or if the small shop-assembled products have a large share of the market [Gottberg A., 2006].
The second challenge is the systems that create incentives for collectors and recyclers to over-report the amount of e-waste collected to gain extra subsidies from the fund. The third challenge is the competition between the formal and informal recycling sector to gain access to e-waste. One of the key areas for consideration is that the role of the informal e-waste recycling sector in developing countries compared to developed countries. This is because the informal sector in many developing countries is active in the e-waste recycling chain. These informal recyclers are motivated by the precious materials contained in the e-waste stream and its market value [ Prohibiting and imposing fines on informal recycling have not helped in countries like Bangladesh. This is due to the fact that informal recycling is undertaken by the poor people and as such the government is unable to impose heavy fines as they cannot pay it. These governments then attempt to regulate the informal e-waste recycling sector by licensing them. However, the effectiveness of such a scheme depends a lot on the responsibility of the disposer of e-waste. The challenge is how to deal with the e-waste disposer who receives more money from unlicensed informal recyclers than from the licensed recyclers [Manomaivibool, 2009]. A study argues that generally the disposers of e-waste are relatively richer than the recyclers; hence, the government can afford to place a heavy fine on them. However, the issue is governments of Bangladesh are unable to impose fines on e-waste disposers of developed countries where most of the e-waste originates [Kahhat, R., et al., 2008]. It argues that the emergence and growth of the informal sector in developing countries like Bangladesh is the result of intricate interactions between economic incentives, regulation gaps, industrial interdependence and the social reality and prediction that informal sector may remain an influential recycling force for years to come. They suggested the whole informal recycling chain must be thoroughly investigated for which steps are environmentally harmless and should remain and which steps of the material mass flow should be changed for better downstream environmental and recycling performance [Lindhqvist Thomas., 2000].

ENTANGLEMENT OF E-WASTE POLICY
The policy implications of the e-waste development trends for Bangladesh is that e-waste policy makers should cautiously adopt e-waste policy taking into account the local socio-economic conditions and its potential effectiveness in addressing challenges related to the informal sector. E-waste policy makers should consider supplementing legislative instruments with economic and social initiates such as integrating e-waste management as part of a national green growth strategy and integrating strategic environmental assessment (SEA) into the e-waste policy planning process. This would allow Bangladesh to integrate the informal sector into the country's economic development as well as enable positive social benefits to the informal e-waste sector. Furthermore, e-waste policy makers should also consider establishing an e-waste information system (EIS) that forms the foundation for effective decision making related to e-waste issues in the country as well as establishing a phased national e-waste register for the informal sector. This also enables an effective decision support system to tackle basic issues related to e-waste flow. The specific solutions recommended for Bangladesh are: The first recommendation is the integration of e-waste into the national development agenda via policy planning tools such as green economy assessment (GEA) and SEA. The conventional approach of replicating models from developed countries no matter how successful they are in those counties needs to be reexamined as e-waste issues in developing countries are complex and intricately linked to the informal sector as well as socio-economic-political dynamics.
Policy planning tools such as GEA and SEA are expected to enhance e-waste integration of stakeholder considerations, green economy credentials and environmental sustainability in e-waste policy development. The GEA is a system of super streaming national economic policies patterns towards sustainable investment, production and consumption so that economic growth results in both environmental and social growth. The GEA is a paradigm shift from the current traditional 'black economy' based on fossil fuels to a 'green economy' based on renewable energy sources and sustainable production and consumption. The application of GEA for e-waste policy planning would provide the opportunity for the e-waste sector to be integrated as part of a national green growth policy where potentially the government becomes the largest investor and consumer of green e-waste infrastructure and products. This may provide the necessary economic incentive signals for a more environmental responsible e-waste production sector once the government becomes the market and driver to green the supply chain.
Furthermore, GEA would enable the rebranding of the e-waste sector from the current polluting image to a more green opportunity reflection of economic growth for Bangladesh. Meanwhile, SEA is a system of incorporating environmental considerations into policies, plans and programmes (PPP). The SEA was initially promoted as an extension of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) principles and practice to PPP where it added value by analyzing PPP at an early stage, thus setting the context and framework for EIAs at the Project level. The application of SEA for e-waste policy planning is especially important in the integration of the environmental considerations during the spatial distribution of e-waste infrastructure and facilities at a regional and a national level. This would enable the cumulative assessment and development of crosssectoral strategies to prevent improper siting and pollution loading on environmental sensitive areas and environmental sensitive receptors based on the existing carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Furthermore, SEA would also enable the formal integration of alternative scenarios and stakeholder participation in e-waste policy planning which may include options on preventive deep structure economic, environmental and social strategies to tackle root-cause problems in the current e-waste management situation of Bangladesh.
The second recommendation is the establishment of national e-waste database systems coupled with a decision support system to collate, update and disseminate data and information on e-waste. Typically, developing countries like Bangladesh lack an e-waste database or a one off e-waste inventory is only conducted as part of a development in an international funded study. Nevertheless, without a continual systematic e-waste information system, Bangladesh would be in essence operating blindly as they lack the decision support system to guide e-waste policy development in a sustainable manner. The e-waste database system is expected to function as a virtual knowledge hub for agencies, organizations, industries and stakeholders for the purpose of coming together and building and enhancing knowledge on e-waste.
The third recommendation is the establishment of a phased national informal sector e-waste register with the purpose of registering and formally recognizing and tracking the informal sector. The biggest challenge of the informal sector is, whether small or large scale is their anonymity to the national authorities which then makes management and regulation fuzzy. Previous attempts to use the carrot or the stick in regulating the e-waste sector has proven less than successful as their identity is often obscure and their numbers considerable. Therefore, an e-waste register without imposing conditions in the initial stage is expected to bring the informal sector into the fold of the formal sector via a soft approach without being perceived as antagonistic, but at the same allows the national governments to monitor the activities of these interim informal sectors. Consequently, the functionality of the e-waste register for the informal e-waste sector can be enhanced by designing it to be an initial soft non-threatening initiative coupled with a GEA incentivization to facilitate the move towards registration and semi-formalization as a means to obtain the economic benefits of formal recognition. A similar approach was adopted by the Japanese government for lead acid battery recycling as well as the Malaysian government for partial e-waste recyclers. This is expected to promote the informal e-waste sector for the necessary administrative, economic and social recognition incentives to operate in a environmentally and socially responsible manner. Finally, a key aspect of e-waste policy development for Bangladesh may require a paradigm shift in perception of e-waste from an informal sector's economic, social and environment problems to a perception of e-waste as a potential opportunity for green economy growth and informal sector mainstreaming.

WAY FORWARD TO ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY AND APPROACH
The electronic industry has revolutionized the world over last decades as electrical and electronic products increasingly have become an essential part of everyday human life worldwide. While no one can categorically quantify how much electronic wastes are presently being circulated globally or how much of this waste is hazardous, what is definite is that, if not properly managed, electronic wastes have the potential of threatening human health and the environment. Waste experts, as well as industrialists, environmentalists, and governments, increasingly agree that the response is to generate as little waste as possible in the first place, through the related concepts of cleaner production and eco-efficiency. Cleaner production generates less waste, and reuses and recycles more of what it is produced. Eco-efficiency uses fewer raw materials and there is an upward consensus that industrial societies could cut consumption of them by 90 per cent, while still greatly improving living standards. Although a wide range of environmentallyeffective technologies are now available to mitigate emissions and provide public health, environmental protection and sustainable development benefits, and commentators readily subscribe to the sweeping measures and standards adopted against the problem of electronic waste in Europe and the US as the pathway to solve the problem in Bangladesh, the capacity of Bangladesh to procure such technologies or the skills to operate and maintain them are limited. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that solving the e-waste problem in Bangladesh must necessarily entail a multi-pronged approach. Today, several developing countries are drawing up policies regarding electrical and electronic equipment; some are focusing on the age of imported electrical and electronic equipment, for example Ghana is considering a ban on electrical and electronic equipment that is older than five years, while Uganda has banned second-hand electrical and electronic equipment from entering the country, while Nigeria is developing its own guidelines to ensure environmentally sound management of e-waste, and is in discussions with a UKbased waste from electrical and electronic equipment recycler to establish a facility in Lagos. Nevertheless, global, regional and national policies focusing on banning or regulating imports, or practices such as open burning have so far been weakly enforced, and have not enabled effective and significant management of electronic wastes treatment. Furthermore, transnational export/import tariffs do not make a distinction between second-hand or unserviceable electrical and electronic equipment and brand new electrical and electronic equipment, which complicates the system of restraining or curbing the illegal import of electronic wastes. Perhaps instead of bans on imports and on informal electronic wastes recycling practices, it is being suggested that both should be more efficiently controlled, and that it is especially vital to include the informal sector within decisions and resulting actions. The risks to the environment and human health connected with informal electronic wastes practices within developing countries could potentially be reduced significantly through the use of better dismantling methods. With particular regard to electronic wastes, for example, modern recycling plants can recover or re-use equipment material, leaving only a tiny portion as waste. The envisaged future is one in which societies have reduced to a sustainable level the e-waste-related burden on the ecosystem that results from the design, production, use and disposal of electrical and electronic equipment. One further way forward will be to transfer the global problem of e-wastes to the individual scale in order to increase individual involvement. Actions, targeting the different social classes, should be taken to raise awareness levels through the available means. After all, as experiences from Jordan, Thailand, and China show, separating waste at generation sources has proven to be much easier and more cost effective than at later stages.
In terms of regulations, since achieving a complete universal approach to the problem of e-waste is proving to be thorny, The bottom-line of the contention here is that all the actors along the product-disposal chain share responsibility for the environmental impacts of the whole product system. The greater the ability of each stratum of actor(s) to influence the environmental impacts of the product system, therefore, the greater the share of responsibility for addressing those impacts should be. The actors contemplated within the framework of this discussion are the product manufacturers, the suppliers, and the consumers. Manufacturers should reduce the life-cycle environmental impacts of their products through their influence on product design, material choices, manufacturing processes, product delivery, product system support, and product disposal mechanisms. Suppliers should have a significant influence by providing manufacturers with environmentally friendly materials and components. Consumers should affect the environmental impacts of products in a number of ways, namely, by way of purchase choices (i.e. choosing environmentally friendly products), adopting good maintenance culture and environmentally-conscious operation of electronic products, and careful end-of-life disposal special care in disposing of household electronics containing toxic substances and returning them to proper facilities where possible.

CONCLUSION
Solid waste management, which is already a big challenge for Bangladesh, is becoming more complicated by the invasion of e-wastes. There exists an urgent need for a detailed assessment of the current and future scenarios including quantification, GEOGRAPHY. ENVIRONMENT. SUSTAINABILITY. 01 (09) 2016 characteristics, existing disposal practices, environmental impacts etc. Institutional infrastructures, including e-waste import, collection, transportation, treatment, storage, recovery and disposal, need to be established, at national and/or regional levels for the environmentally sound management of e-wastes. Establishment of e-waste collection, exchange and recycling centers should be encouraged in partnership with private entrepreneurs and manufacturers. E-waste policy development may require a paradigm shift in perception from a problematic waste issue to an opportunistic green growth solution for Bangladesh. Consequently, this paper suggests that e-waste policy development may require a more customized approach where instead of addressing e-waste in isolation it should be addressed as part of the national development agenda that integrates GEA and SEA as part of the national policy planning.
Khalid Md. Bahauddin holds Bachelor (Hons) and Master's Degree on Environmental sciences from Jahangirnagar University. Additionally he did a fellowship in Environment and Sustainability in Japan and he is a visiting scholar of the University of Leuven. He has been awarded and recognized for outstanding contributions to environmental activities and researches from different international bodies. He has more than 5 years of extensive professional experience in the field of environment. He is affiliated with different societies and forum at national and international level working for environment. His research expertise work has been on climate change, disaster risk management and social-environmental issues and he has also developed expertise in multidisciplinary research on sustainable development, natural resources management, environmental governance and management. He has significant number of publications in form of books, research papers and articles.