1. Introduction
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. Media coverage has shown workers, including children, in Guiyu, China and Agbogbloshie, Ghana burning cables and circuit boards to extract precious metals, releasing toxic emissions into abject surroundings. Stories such as these have helped raise international attention and concern over how to manage a growing number of obsolete electronics, often called electronic waste, or e-waste [
1,
2]. 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]. Media exposés of harm caused by recycling electronics in less developed countries have also impacted the way global electronic manufacturers communicate to the public about their electronics collection and recycling initiatives. They try to avoid being connected to harmful informal activities, knowing that such negative publicity impacts public perception of their brands [
8].
Thus, media coverage is key to raising awareness of critical environmental issues. Once the public generally accepts environmental concerns, media outlets can choose to focus on a single issue or present multiple facts to a story, and thus, potentially negatively or positively impact how the public receives and responds to information. For example, the positive role of media in raising public awareness about climate change helped lead to increased worldwide use and production of renewable fuels, including biodiesel [
9]. Media discussions on the algae bloom that results from nutrient loading to lakes which then pollutes drinking water depict microalgae, one source of biodiesel, as a harmful species that leads to serious illness [
10]. However, microalgae can also be used for pharmaceutical products or in conjunction with wastewater treatment and, therefore, can be beneficial for public health [
11]. In this same way, media coverage wields power in shaping our collective understanding of what happens to our electronics when we are finished using them. Where sustained media attention amplifies specific depictions of informal workers, these depictions can further shape our perceptions of them, even if the story has multiple facets.
With more than 44.7 million metric tons of e-waste generated globally in 2016, and with an expected increase to approximately 52 million metric tons in 2025 [
12], unsafe recycling is a global concern. Put otherwise, the amount of e-waste generated in 2016 is equivalent to almost 4500 Eiffel Towers, according to the Global E-Waste Monitor 2017 Report (a joint effort of the United Nations University (UNU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA)) [
12]. Done crudely without any pollution controls or safety measures in place, extracting material from used electronics can lead to soil and water contamination and serious ailments among workers where haphazard e-waste processing takes place, such as pulmonary and respiratory diseases, cancer, and elevated blood levels, as documented in Guiyu, China [
13]. Studies in Guiyu and others in India [
14,
15] also demonstrated comparatively higher levels of cadmium, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, and mercury in soil and water samples. As many ailments often go unreported among informal workers and long-term health impacts from exposure are difficult to track, the studies that have collected sample health data, such as those showing elevated levels of lead in children’s blood, demonstrate cause for significant concern.
In response, over the last two decades, many countries passed e-waste legislation, beginning in Europe with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, followed by a patchwork of state regulations in the United States. Though regulations have been enacted in countries such as India, China, Peru, Colombia, Cambodia, and Vietnam, national e-waste legislation is still absent in many countries across Africa, Central and South America, Central Asia, Eastern Asia and Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. Due to the large populations of India and China, regulations or official policies currently cover approximately 4.8 billion people, or 66 percent of the world’s population [
12]. However, the existence of policies or legislation does not necessarily lead to successful enforcement or the robust growth of environmentally sound e-waste management systems. Globally, documentation estimates that only 8.9 million metric tons of e-waste will be collected and recycled annually—approximately 20 percent of all the e-waste generated [
12].
Lack of success in recycling greater amounts of electronics may, in part, be due to how e-waste legislation is designed. Many e-waste regulations are rooted in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), where producers, or manufacturers, typically pay by weight for recycling legacy products based on their current market share. The regulations often spur recycling contracts managed by third parties whereby manufacturers must document that the e-waste is safely recycled. Research examining experiences implementing EPR compliance schemes, more generally, in different European Union (E.U.) countries within the last decade point to mixed success where producers are required to finance the cost of recycling certain products [
16]. For example, in some instances, producer-financed collection and recycling schemes adequately compensated local governments for the incremental costs of recycling packaging waste, such as in Germany, but in others, namely Romania, local governments bore significantly higher costs [
16]. In the example of packaging waste, despite participation from several producers, evidence of ‘free-riding” still existed, where producers responsible for introducing packaged goods into the E.U. market still evaded contributing financially to waste recovery operations [
16]. These mixed results demonstrate the need to account for regional and local government capacity when designing EPR schemes.
Pairing legislation with adequate and viable economic incentives is also critical to the success of regulatory schemes that seek to foster financially self-sustaining solutions and drive market competition for waste management services. Many e-waste regulations strive to create an environment where producers pay for e-waste recycling and contracted recycling firms compete for their business by offering the best value for collection and processing. Research from Portugal’s experience regulating waste utilities with sunshine legislation, where operators’ records based on government-developed performance indicators were compared and displayed publicly, demonstrated good performance outcomes as operators sought to correct inefficiencies to avoid embarrassment for poor performance [
17]. Though such an approach led to initial improvements across the urban waste management sector, economic disincentives hindered long-term progress. Rate-of-return regulation, where payments to firms are based on costs and profits that remain the same regardless of performance, led to overinvestment and eventual decline in productivity and quality of waste management services among firms [
17]. In the Portuguese example, it was deemed that economic regulation based on a price cap would have incentivized greater productivity within firms. Such lessons can be instructive to the e-waste management sector, where different EPR legislations create different economic frameworks for implementation. For example, across the E.U. and in 25 states within the U.S., producers jointly finance electronics collection and recycling via a collective platform managed by a third-party organization that contracts out recycling to different firms. Such an arrangement requires collaborative game theory applied within the e-waste network framework and producers collaborate to set up an infrastructure and design collection and recycling networks to comply with the e-waste regulation [
18]. In contrast, in California, consumers are charged advance recycling fees at point of purchase, which are used to finance collection and recycling operated by a state-controlled, and price-controlled, system. Producers may join a collective system or operate individual takeback systems that conform to standards in California’s legislation. Adding further complexity, the success of economic incentives for collection and recycling schemes also depends on the type of technologies targeted in the legislation and the business models of producers [
18]. For example, recycling legacy televisions often costs more due to the lower value of the material and limited reuse opportunities whereas mobile phones and laptops typically have higher economic value. As such, operational factors, such as how well producers can collaborate via a network to apportion costs and ensure cost-effectiveness in product takeback, can significantly influence the efficiency of legislation in achieving policy objectives related to EPR [
18].
As EPR-based take-back policies spread to different countries, applying an operations management lens is critical to link policy instruments with on the ground implementation approaches, recognizing that one solution usually does not apply equally in different regions of the world and in various business contexts [
18]. Less industrialized, or developing, countries that enacted e-waste legislation often adopted the EPR-based regulatory framework first promulgated in Europe. Yet developing countries often face weaker institutions and lack the capacity to implement and enforce the laws or foster an economic environment in which producers can establish cost-efficient and productive e-waste collection and recycling systems. Governments in less industrialized countries may find it challenging to collect funds from manufacturers if smuggled, imitation, or small shop assembled products have a higher market share [
19]. Lack of strong institutions may contribute to low trust among producers, which may hinder collaboration to collect and recycle electronics, and thus, inhibit cost-effective scale economies in managing e-waste under EPR regulation.
Most waste management regulations throughout the world—both general waste regulations and those related to e-waste—omit mention of informal workers [
12,
20]. Until recently, informal recycling and reuse in Europe has not been acknowledged and remains a challenge for policymakers and the solid waste management sector [
20]. Across Europe, informal recyclers increasingly collide with formal reuse, recycling, and waste management schemes under EPR systems [
20], yet the framework underpinning the WEEE Directive does not account for them. In developing countries with large informal e-waste economies, EPR-based e-waste regulations were often enacted without including an operational framework for addressing the presence of the informal sector, thereby demonstrating a disconnect with on the ground realities. Whereas, in industrialized economies, a formal recycling sector is typically more established and poised to thrive once recycling firms are assured access to volumes of e-waste paid for by producers, such has not been the experience in developing economies. The latter often lack the capacity to enforce pollution control regulations to end unsafe informal recycling. Informal workers still dominate e-waste management in Africa, where modern infrastructure is ‘nonexistent or grossly limited’ [
12], in China, despite a growth in formal e-waste recycling [
12], as well as in many other countries. In developing economies, the formal sector, which invests in safety equipment and bears administrative costs for its operations, often cannot compete with informal recyclers (who lack the same operating expenses) and therefore struggles to remain economically viable.
While the risks of recycling electronics without safety measures in the informal sector have been documented and regulations have been developed to help foster sound recycling practices with the aim of cultivating a larger formal sector, counter-narratives that involve informal workers also exist. Done safely, repurposing used electronics—often by informal workers—reincarnates scarce natural resources, invents new jobs, and closes the digital divide by providing refurbished products to those unable to afford new ones [
21]. According to the International Labor Organization, ‘informal economy’ refers to:
“All economic activities by workers and economic units that are—in law or in practice—not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements. Their activities are not included in the law, which means that they are operating outside the formal reach of the law; or they are not covered in practice, which means that—although they are operating within the formal reach of the law, the law is not applied or not enforced; or the law discourages compliance because it is inappropriate, burdensome, or imposes excessive costs”.
In recent years, the global policy landscape has evolved to where stakeholders, especially those in developing countries, recognize the unavoidable presence of informal workers and now seek to leverage the informal sector’s skills to manage obsolete electronics more effectively and help workers formalize their operations. With an estimated value of raw materials in e-waste at 55 billion Euros, many formal and informal recyclers both seek access to these materials [
12]. Current challenges discussed in the scholarly literature and among policymakers center on how to engage informal workers on collection and basic dismantling, while diverting material for further recycling to ‘formal’ facilities with demonstrated good health and safety practices, often located in other countries, usually in the global North. The “Best of Two Worlds” policy framework advocates that workers in less industrialized countries collect and pre-process electronics and partner with such formal facilities to extract precious metals, the last stage of recycling where human health and the environment often face the greatest risks [
23,
24]. Within the last decade, pilots in different countries have experimented with how to involve the informal sector. While policymakers and other key academic, nongovernmental organization (NGO), and manufacturer stakeholders agree that informal workers can play a substantive role in managing obsolete electronics, socio-economic challenges to integrate them into sound e-waste management practices exist and persist [
25]. Current on the ground efforts in regions across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Asia, for example, continue to try to overcome these challenges by testing new approaches and building informal capacity [
26].
Given these developments, how do mainstream media depict the informal sector’s involvement in managing e-waste? Has news coverage kept pace with current policy debates on how to involve the informal sector in e-waste management schemes?
This research aims to provide an initial set of comparative insights, not an exhaustive analysis, of media depictions of informal workers’ involvement in managing e-waste. The findings are intended to serve as a starting point of discussion for stakeholders interested in shaping the public’s understanding and perception of the informal sector. This study contributes to a nascent, but growing, body of research that applies controversy mapping principles to policy discussions in e-waste management. After nearly two decades since the first media reports of harm caused by e-waste surfaced, policymakers can observe if or how mainstream news coverage reflects their agendas. Conversely, how international policymakers and other key stakeholders—themselves consumers of mainstream media—perceive informal workers might impact how they later engage with them to achieve certain ends. Results from this study could serve as the building blocks of a multi-part study that would examine the actors, their networks, geographic locations, and agendas influencing discussions around the informal sector’s efforts related to e-waste. Additionally, standalone findings from this study could also complement or add layered insights to other studies examining broader stakeholder debates that might include the informal sector’s role in managing e-waste.
India provides the optimal landscape in which to examine the shifting norms and debates surrounding e-waste. Depictions of the informal sector in India can provide insights on how non-Indian and Indian media describe its involvement in e-waste, potentially teasing out global and regional perspectives, biases, and interpretations. Findings from India can provide national policymakers with insights on media coverage in other countries, such as China, Ghana, South Africa, and Brazil, where a robust informal sector also collects, dismantles, and extracts metals from growing amounts of e-waste, and where policymakers have passed, or are working to pass, legislation to improve the quantity and quality of recycling. India represents the experience of informal e-waste management of many countries, just on a much larger scale. Moreover, lessons from media depictions of informal workers in India can inform global stakeholders on the extent to which their agendas are reflected in current media coverage.
With a population of 1.3 million people, India generates significant volumes of e-waste (2 million tons in 2016) and also imports obsolete electronics from developed countries [
12]. Its electronics industry is also one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Though the formal e-waste recycling sector in India is being developed in major cities, estimates cite nearly a million informal workers involved in manually recycling electronics across India [
12]. Tens of thousands of informal workers in the Delhi region alone collect, dismantle, or recycle used electronics, as Delhi’s scrap markets are among the largest in the world [
27].
Research on informal cottage industries in Delhi demonstrates higher levels of contamination and health risks resulting from processing printed circuit boards containing precious metals and plastics containing brominated flame retardants [
27,
28]. In India, CRT monitors are sought after by scrap dealers for the copper in the yoke and metals in printed wiring boards. Broken CRT glass, lacking demand from international markets, ends up discarded or mixed in with other glass in the recycling ovens in the eastern outskirts of Delhi to make products, such as jewelry and household items, for domestic markets—an example of widespread contamination that is difficult to trace and quantify [
29]. A large subset of the tens of thousands of informal industrial units, many of which include electronics processing, are being targeted by government authorities per the Master Plan Delhi, where “all polluting industries need to be shifted out by 2021” [
27] (p. 2). In other recycling hubs within India, such as Moradabad, located in Uttar Pradesh about 2 hours from Delhi, a significant number of its several hundred thousand residents extract gold and other previous metals from printed circuit boards (PCBs) via harmful methods [
15]. Chennai, Calcutta, Mumbai and Bangalore are also mentioned as places where electronics collection, trading, aggregation and dismantling by the informal sector occur.
India also offers fertile ground on which to conduct studies of the informal sector’s involvement in electronics recycling because numerous actors ranging from NGOs, government, academia, trade associations, manufacturers, and multilateral international aid and financial institutions (such as Germany’s Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC)) have debated (and continue to discuss) how to reduce the flow of e-waste into India, stem harmful informal recycling, and integrate the informal sector into sound e-waste management practices [
15,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
35,
36,
37,
38]. India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests passed e-waste legislation under an EPR framework in 2011 and again in 2016, this latest time requiring manufacturers to not only pay for electronics recycling, but also to meet specific recycling targets [
39]. The recent regulation acknowledges the role of informal workers but does not provide guidance for how manufacturers can engage them [
39]. Since 2009, multilateral institutions have piloted different approaches to working with informal collectors and different organizations with experience engaging waste collectors have also tried piloting e-waste management approaches with the informal sector [
40].
Over the past ten years, several media stories highlighted electronics recycling occurring in the small alleyways of Seelampur, a popular hub for trading, refurbishing, dismantling and extracting precious metals from used electronics, in the outskirts of Delhi [
41,
42,
43,
44,
45]. More recently, Indian media covered government crackdowns in informal recycling efforts in Moradabad [
46,
47].
Given these multiple factors, India provides a good testing ground to determine which depictions of the informal sector’s involvement in managing e-waste feature most prominently in media representations. What narratives do media stories introduce, reinforce, or dispute? Do similarities and differences exist in how non-India-based (non-Indian) media and India-based (Indian) media have covered the informal sector’s role in managing e-waste in India?
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, a literature review is presented. Second, the research methods are introduced. Third, the results and their interpretation are presented, followed by a discussion. Finally, conclusions and recommendations for future research areas are provided.
5. Discussion
Though findings from this study reflect mainstream media portrayals for a limited dataset, should they indicate larger trends in media depictions of informal workers—both within India and globally—they could help inform stakeholder agendas seeking to influence public awareness on if and/or how to integrate informal workers into viable e-waste management solutions. The data also provides a preliminary mirror for stakeholders to see the how their agendas are or are not currently reflected back into the public sphere.
First, a more complete and nuanced picture that parses out the environmental, health, and labor impacts of each step in the e-waste management chain would more effectively describe how and why specific informal sector activities are harmful to human welfare. Both non-Indian and Indian articles accurately and consistency describe the harmful impacts due to informal recycling, reflecting the success of sustained (often NGO-led) campaigns over the last decade to bring attention to the dangers of key informal activities, namely use of acid baths and open burning in uncontrolled environments without safety measures, and also some dismantling activities under conditions that do not prevent harmful dust inhalation. Yet findings across non-Indian and Indian articles demonstrate that negative impacts from the informal sector’s involvement in e-waste management, such as child labor, health risks, and environmental harm, are often grouped together without denoting which activities are more alarming than others for environmental or social reasons or both. As such, audiences—predominantly Western readers from industrialized countries who are less familiar with different aspects of e-waste management among informal workers in India—may form an opinion of the informal sector that accounts for only the negative aspects of its involvement with e-waste without fully understanding the nuances of how informal workers’ involvement in collection and (some) dismantling carries much lower risks and can help solve challenges to enacting e-waste management solutions. Several stakeholders, including prominent NGOs such as the U.S.-based Basel Action Network and India-based Toxics Link have advocated stopping the flow of obsolete electronics from the global North to the global South to reduce harm, a perspective represented in the articles. Such is but one solution, however, it does not address the problem of growing amounts of e-waste within India. As such, some NGOs, including Toxics Link, have therefore been active in helping to devise capacity building training programs for informal workers and issued reports on ways to design schemes that integrate informal workers to leverage their strengths in collection [
31].
Likewise, without clearer demarcations of what kinds of informal activities are harmful or illegal versus helpful or accepted in managing e-waste, readers may also perceive all informal sector involvement as problematic and not consider the informal sector’s strengths in collection and most dismantling. Moreover, describing the informal sector’s involvement generally as ‘illegal’, may confuse the public’s perception of what constitutes environmentally sustainable and unsustainable e-waste management. Does “illegal” refer to violating environmental regulations (as uncontrolled use and disposal of chemicals likely do) or to operating businesses without proper licenses or to avoiding paying taxes? Many informal workers’ incomes are usually below the minimum tax threshold, defined as subsistence activity, and therefore cannot be perceived as illegal; in contrast, activities are illegal where operators with incomes above the minimum tax threshold bypass national and/or local laws and regulations [
62]. Thus, when articles use the term ‘illegal’, it is unclear which to activities they are referring.
Second, a ‘systems-based’ versus ‘linear’ narrative would help illuminate other socio-economic factors impacting how and why the informal sector engages in e-waste management. Most news articles in the dataset present the informal sector’s involvement in handling e-waste as a simplified linear narrative, where illegal exports of used electronics from industrialized countries enter less industrialized countries and are processed in “digital dumping grounds”. In India, a tapestry of issues surrounds and affects informal workers engaged in e-waste related to employment, education, urban migration, and stigmatization based on religious or caste affiliation, among others [
38,
63]. Thus, lack of nuanced depictions oversimplifies other dynamics affecting informal workers’ choices to engage in e-waste. A systems approach would move beyond cause-effect and include multiple contributing factors mutually influencing each other. For example, recent high-profile crackdowns on informal recycling operations in Moradabad reflect progress in stemming the spread of harmful processing, potentially as a result of sustained public attention [
46,
47]. Yet further discussion of what happens to thousands of informal workers when their recycling operations are raided and shut down by authorities might prove illustrative on whether the problem has been solved or if informal recycling will simply migrate elsewhere, especially since many informal workers (in Moradabad in particular) have been engaged in the scrap and metals trade for a long time. Critical media coverage can still recognize the benefits of eradicating harmful informal operations but can also examine challenges informal workers face regarding issues such as employment, education, health, and gender equity when their incomes from recycling cease. The challenge for the media lies in doing so without overgeneralizing or over-romanticizing the circumstances of such workers.
In another example, certain non-Indian and Indian articles mention the hierarchical, well-networked nature of the informal sector, but do not tease out the interdependencies and complexities of how informal workers work with each other. Scholarly and NGO research have combed through such interactions [
38,
64]. Translating academic findings for a mainstream audience could inform the public on how to engage informal workers successfully or why challenges to do so persist. Do the relationships between informal workers, often built on trust and kinship ties, affect external efforts to leverage their skills or integrate them into formal recycling efforts? Perhaps, controversially, how does the presence of corruption affect initiatives seeking to promote transparency? Do any dynamics resulting from larger societal power structures remain unchallenged with the current portrayal of how informal workers engage in e-waste management? Who stands to gain or lose should the narrative become more nuanced? Both non-Indian and Indian articles also generally do not describe the different informal actors, hierarchies and power dynamics present within those hierarchies, which could highlight who possesses greater agency than others in managing e-waste.
Third, a simplified narrative, where the informal sector’s role is associated with a cradle-to-grave trajectory for e-waste, also limits a more expansive discussion of the informal sector’s role in a ‘circular economy’ which “design[s] out waste and pollution, keep[s] products and materials in use, [and] regenerate[s] natural systems” [
62,
65].
According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation, in a circular economy.
“Companies need to build core competencies in circular design to facilitate product reuse, recycling and cascading. Circular product (and process) design requires advanced skills, information sets, and working methods. Areas important for economically successful circular design include: material selection, standardized components, designed-to-last products, design for easy end-of-life sorting, separation or reuse of products and materials, and design-for-manufacturing criteria that take into account possible useful applications of by-products and wastes”.
Reuse, collection, and basic dismantling of used electronics exemplify such circularity. Yet, most articles that highlight the harmful impacts from metals extraction either gloss over or omit mention of reuse. Informal workers have a large presence in refurbishing used products in India, as seen from the basements of Seelampur that repurpose used CRTs to the shops in Delhi’s Nehru Place hawking repairs for mobile phones and laptops. Refurbishment of used products provides employment to many informal workers, often distinct from informal recyclers.
Recycling in most industrialized countries tends to rely on mechanized separation and recovery, whereas in other countries, especially in India, many aspects of managing obsolete electronics depend on manual labor. ‘Circularity’, therefore, may appear different in different countries. Portrayals of workers manually dismantling electronics with simple tools, often seen in the informal sector, can be construed and interpreted differently, depending on how the narrative is contextualized for specific audiences. Articles in the dataset often referenced “rudimentary” and “inadequate” tools that, when used correctly, can safely and effectively separate components to recover high-value material. In cases where Western audiences are not familiar with which kinds of manual activities are harmful or benign—because they live in more mechanized economies and are less exposed to manual labor—they would be more reliant on media depictions for explanations. What place do non-mechanized, labor-intensive activities occupy in debates around fostering a circular economy, as understood by stakeholders in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries alike?
6. Conclusions
Most current print news coverage of the informal sector’s involvement in e-waste from both non-Indian and Indian media outlets lags policy discussions currently focused on integrating informal workers into sound e-waste management schemes. For example, stakeholders are currently considering piloting approaches that include using mobile devices to track e-waste collected by informal workers; leveraging informal capabilities to collect e-waste from municipal governments; and examining the role of microfinance or other financial incentives for informal workers to access capital to operate more transparently and safely [
67,
68,
69].
Findings from the dataset highlight an opportunity for policymakers, electronics manufacturers, and NGO/advocacy groups to bridge the gap between current media representations of informal workers’ involvement in e-waste management and how the stakeholder community debates and envisions the role of the informal sector. Greater context and nuance in media representations of informal workers’ involvement in managing e-waste might benefit stakeholders seeking to engage the informal sector in e-waste solutions and generate public support for their efforts. More clearly delineating which activities are deemed beneficial versus harmful to human health and the environment may be important in shaping public perception of the informal sector’s evolving role and future involvement in such initiatives.
All stakeholders could benefit from engaging with media outlets to advance a more nuanced portrayal of informal workers. Policymakers would benefit from communicating different aspects of the informal sector’s role in managing e-waste and any related progress in formalizing their efforts to the public. A more consistent and thorough explanation of how the informal sector is well positioned to undertake collection, aggregation, and some basic dismantling activities could help the general public better understand how the informal sector can add value to sound e-waste management practices. Manufacturers subject to recycling targets under EPR regulations in India and in other countries with large informal sectors might feel more comfortable participating in pilot initiatives that work with informal collectors and dismantlers to direct material into safe end processing without fear of negative publicity in being linked to informal workers. Nuanced media depictions may also help global electronics companies better explain participation in such pilots with informal workers to Western audiences less familiar with how the informal sector can positively contribute to sound e-waste management. NGOs could benefit if donors possess an understanding of small gains made amidst an evolving and complicated issue, potentially allowing for expectations to align with realistic impacts. Finally, even mainstream media could benefit from multifaceted portrayals, despite short-term gains that favor sensationalist simplistic coverage, such as higher ratings, more re-tweets, and accolades (per the adage “if it bleeds it leads”). Stories can still lead with coverage of health and environmental risks but then delve into a more comprehensive discussion of how informal workers can contribute to solutions or how broader (and potentially equally controversial) socio-economic factors impact, or are driven by, informal workers’ harmful activities. In short, media outlets can still create riveting narratives amidst more nuanced discussions.
Media stories balancing multiple, and often opposing, viewpoints, may not necessarily reflect that some views may be more deeply shared among stakeholders. Conversely, an unbalanced story may omit viewpoints from stakeholders that lack access to forums where they can express their concerns, or, minimize voices that are less successful in leveraging their networks to amplify and circulate their perspectives in the public sphere. As such, results from this study point to additional research ideas to generate further insights into media depictions of the informal sector’s involvement in e-waste.
As noted earlier, a study of multimedia coverage from different countries would further inform results from this study. Do similar representations exist among a larger dataset of print media in other languages (including local languages in India) and among the numerous documentaries, news video clips, and radio clips available? Does such a wider dataset point to different representations or issues discussed?
Next, studies employing issue mapping and digital research techniques could examine linkages between actors to identify who is promulgating specific depictions of informal workers. What agendas are they promoting? Which of their agendas is most often represented in media coverage? Moreover, it would also be interesting to determine the extent to which media depictions are congruent with governments’, NGOs’, and multilateral institutions’ portrayals of informal workers in their reports within India and in other countries.
Future research topics could explore the extent to which media portrayals of informal workers influences the public’s perception of them. How do audiences perceive e-waste collection schemes that try to involve the informal sector, when most mainstream media coverage frames the informal sector’s activities in the context of pollution, crime, and illness?
Other studies could examine the extent to which informal workers themselves are aware of how the media depicts their actions and, if so, what consequences result from such depictions? In many instances, informal workers on the streets of Seelampur and Mustafabad declined to speak about their activities related to handling e-waste [
70]. Other studies also cite reluctance or refusal by informal workers to speak to researchers [
27]. Studies based in ‘ethnographic refusal’—“where researchers and research participants
together decide not to make particular information available for use within the academy to ensure that communities are able to respond to issues on their own terms [
71]”—could examine why informal workers in India often refuse to provide those outside their communities with information (an ethnographic refusal “is intended to redirect academic analysis away from harmful pain-based narratives that obscure slow violence, and towards the structures and institutions that engender those narratives. It is a method centrally concerned with a community’s right to self-representation” [
71]). Does aligning the informal sector with negative impacts of e-waste handling perpetuate any existing biases against informal workers in India?
Finally, a study examining if, and to what extent, repeated use of the term ‘electronic waste’ in conjunction with depictions of informal workers’ involvement in collecting, dismantling, and recycling used electronics is leveraged to justify any slow violence against them. Gidwani and Reddy’s examination of “waste” as the political other of capitalist “value” where “things, places, and lives…are cast outside the pale of “value” at particular moments as superfluidity, excess, and detritus, only to return at times in unexpected ways” [
63] (p. 1625) points to depictions of slum dwellers in Delhi’s 2021 Master Plan as ‘urban hazards’ and a ‘nuisance’ [
63] (p. 1644). Gidwani and Reddy also highlight eviction drives and police harassment of poor hawkers in Bangalore and how informal e-waste workers were initially shunned in government-supported efforts to modernize e-waste disposal practices in 2004 [
63]. Existing studies examining ‘humans as waste’ [
72] could also provide further insights on the extent to which informal e-waste workers have
themselves been rendered abject. Does the term ‘waste’, when applied to obsolete electronics, also correlate, in some way, to how informal workers who handle e-waste are depicted?
Answers to these questions may provide insights into how stakeholders and mainstream media alike can frame the complexities, challenges, and opportunities in managing obsolete electronics going forward in ways that meet their goals.