BANGALORE, INDIA: E-waste generated in India will touch 4.7 lakh tonnes by 2011, according to MAIT-GTZ study on e-waste assessment in the country.

Out of 3.3 lakh tonnes of e-waste generated in the country in 2007 and 50,000 tonnes illegally imported only 19,000 tonnes of this is recycled, the study revealed.

This is due to high refurbishing and reuse of electronics products in the country and also due to poor recycling infrastructure. Currently e-waste recycling, especially processing, remains concentrated in the informal sector, which due to poor processing technologies and very small capacities, contributes significantly to pollution and environmental degradation, the report said.

GTZ Director Dr J Bischoff, said: “Significant growth in consumption of electronics items in the last few years, accompanied by a very high rate of obsolescence of these products is, leading to generation of electronic waste in the country. In addition to the e-waste generated in the domestic market, dumping from developed countries has further compounded the problem in India. All stakeholders should cooperate and take corrective action.”

“The situation could assume alarming proportions and therefore it is high time we pay serious attention to the issue of e-waste and take corrective actions to contain this problem. As the first principle of recycling is reuse, it is essential that the electronics industry encourages reuse of obsolete electronics items by suitably refurbishing them and by providing them necessary service support. Further, institutional users must mandatorily put in place a policy on e-waste management and for disposal of obsolete electronic equipments,” said Vinnie Mehta, executive director of MAIT.

Calling for stringent measures to be adopted by the government, Mehta added: “Government should develop an inclusive model by explicitly identifying and defining the roles of each stakeholder including the vendors, the users, the recyclers and the regulator for environmentally friendly recycling. The informal recyclers should also be included in this model and an awareness campaign put in place to ensure right information on e-waste reaches out to all stakeholders in a timely manner.”

The study also revealed that that 94 percent of the organisations studied did not have any policy on disposal of obsolete IT products/e-waste. Further, while a lot of business organisations were aware about e-waste, the depth of knowledge was lacking.

Of the total e-waste generated in the country, Western India accounts for the largest proportion at 35 percent, followed by the South at 30 percent. North and East account for 21 percent and 14 percent, respectively. While North India is not a leading generator, it happens to be the leading processing centre of e-waste in the country.

Currently, there are no formal recyclers operating in the North or the East. There are two formal recyclers in the South of India and one in Western India.

The e-waste assessment study, conducted by the e-Technology group of IMRB International is a survey of over 200 corporate houses and close to 400 households to map their e-waste management practices. The MAIT-GTZ assessment study focussed only on the waste stream of computers, televisions and mobile handsets only.