New Delhi: Environmentalists better watch out! Over 130 million cellphones, or potential time bombs as they are being called by experts because of the toxic materials they contain, will be discarded by the Americans by next year and they would most probably be heading towards Indian shores to be dumped here.

India is one of the fastest growing mobile telephone markets in the world, with 14.17 million users till May last year. The market is rising by over 100 per cent every year, thus making it one of the most lucrative places for global players and cellphone providers, says Ravi Agarwal, director, Toxics Link, a non-governmental organization (NGO).

"The fact, combined with rapid obsolesce due to malfunction or rapid development of new features will create very significant volumes of waste," says Agarwal, noting, "There is a constant threat looming over India as e-waste like this is always headed towards developing countries like India, Pakistan and China."

The alarm bells started ringing for mobile phones when two independent studies funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the State of California in their report last month said that obsolete or non-working mobile phones qualify as hazardous waste even with their batteries removed.

The toxicity is due to the use of the toxic metal lead in the phones and their propensity to leach the lead content when deposited in a municipal landfill, the study said.

"Lead, brominated flame-retardants, beryllium, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, calcium and antimony are found in mobile phone parts, which are highly toxic," says Agarwal.

Movements of hazardous wastes of all kinds is meant to be defined, and controlled or prohibited under the terms of Basel Convention - an international treaty under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme.

However, the problem for India is arising as it has not ratified the ban, says Agarwal, noting, "It is high time for the Indian Government to ratify the Basel Convention and the ban and implement the law on hazardous waste materials."

"Mobile phones that have us addicted by their convenience while in hand, are, once discarded, soon transformed into a very inconvenient societal burden of poison and disease," says Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, which investigated the emerging toxicity data.

The implications for exportation of these old mobile phones to developing countries for recycling or re-use equate to an immediate or delayed toxic time bomb, he says.

According to the study, the average composition of cellphones tested contain 45 per cent plastics, 40 per cent printed wiring (or circuit) board, 4 per cent liquid crystal display and 8 per cent metals. Cellphone batteries too contain toxic elements.