Advertisment

Should India relook into e-waste policy?

author-image
CIOL Bureau
Updated On
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: With new regulatory framework on e-waste management coming into effect on May 1, India has joined the elite club of the US and EU.

Advertisment

The new rules advocate environmentally-friendly recycling and electronic waste management through authorized recyclers. But on the flip side, the awareness levels are relatively low that are likely to act as hurdles in implementation.

A recent finding by the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) said that 50,000 metric tonnes of electronic scrap is imported into the country every year. This, despite the blanket ban on hazardous waste imports by the Basel Convention treaty.

E-waste finds its way into West African countries and south Asian nations, including India,  by traffickers who classify it as plastic scrap for re-use. Ironically, the new laws lack teeth to tackle hazardous imports.

Advertisment

Following criticism, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan last week assured Lok Sabha that the ministry is open for a relook into new e-waste rules. The government has also formed a coordination committee for effective implementation of E-waste (Management and  Handling) Rules, 2011.

Industry veteran and MAIT president Alok Bharadwaj in an interaction with CIOL informed that new management is an attempt to regulate electronic scrap by removal of existing deficiencies.

The new framework, Bharadwaj said, will mandate extended responsibility for producers, mechanism of collection and recycling through authorized recyclers and regulated disposals. "This is a first step that will help govern the e-waste scenario in India," he added.

Advertisment

The painpoints include formal and regulated collection mechanism and absence of organized and systematic recycling system.

"India has highly informal and unorganized recycling and disposal system which has mushroomed in places and individual entrepreneurs feel it best as a business opportunity," Bharadwaj said.

MAIT said that the unorganized sector has to be brought into the mainstream activities. The process of formalization of informal sectors have been initiated in some metropolitans like Delhi and Bangalore.

Bharadwaj feels that new rules will facilitate in formalizing the informal sector. The e-waste recycling and disposal of residues, he feels, should be confined to the organized formal recyclers.

tech-news