The UN has warned about the health and environmental dangers from the processing of e-waste - the discarded electronic and electrical material - by the informal sector in India without proper safeguards. "Severe health impacts and environmental damage are widespread in India, due to the final step of the e-waste processing by the informal sector," a report by the International Telecommunications Union and the UN University released on Wednesday said. Over 1 million poor people in India are involved in manual recycling operations, but "most of these people have very low literacy levels with little awareness of the dangers of the operations," it added.