E-Waste in South Asia: A Meta-Analytic Review of Social and Environmental Impacts

Abstract The rapid growth in digital consumption has led to the significant increase of electronic waste in South Asia, which poses grave social and environmental challenges. The paper presents a meta-analytic review of the impacts of e-waste in South Asia, focusing on its implications for public health, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic factors. This paper uses secondary data in the form of reports, peer-reviewed journals, and institutional publications to highlight key issues concerning critical issues in the region. These critical issues include improper recycling infrastructure, informal e-waste management practices, and weak regulatory enforcement. The results show that informal e-waste processing, carried out in most cases without proper safety conditions, leads to severe environmental pollution and health effects such as respiratory diseases, skin conditions, and potential DNA damage. The socio-economic dimension further reveals the exploitation of vulnerable populations engaged in hazardous recycling activities for minimal wages. This study underlines the urgent policy interventions, e-waste management systems, and public awareness needed to reduce the adverse impact of e-waste. Furthermore, it addresses the gaps found in previous research by suggesting further directions for future research in the investigation of new recyclable technologies as well as specific regional policy framework designs. It offers a general view of the e-waste crisis in South Asia by setting the need for collaboration to have a balance of digital advancement along with environmental sustainability.