Guidelines On e-Waste Soon

In India, there are no specific environmental laws or guidelines for
electronic waste. None of the existing environ­mental laws have any direct
reference to e-waste orits handling as hazardous in nature.

However, several provisions of these laws may apply to various aspects of
wastes. Since WEEE/e-waste or its residues fall under the category of
'hazardous' and 'non-hazardous waste', they shall be covered under the purview
of 'The Hazardous Waste Management Rules, 2003' and 'The Municipal Solid Wastes
(Management and Handling) Rules, 2000'. Hence, the guidelines have been drafted
after referring to various international norms prevailing in the US, Japan,
Canada and British Columbia, and will be in line with the Basel convention.

According to an official from Ministry of Environment and Forests, the
government of India has issued the draft guidelines for e-waste and was awaiting
suggestions from the stakeholders.

“The government has issued the draft guidelines which is put on the Central
Pollution Control Board's website. The draft will be available for public
refe­rence for 60 days, till end-November. We are inviting suggestions on the
draft, which will be then incorporated into the final bill to be enacted,” the
official said.

The draft categorizes e-waste as small and large household appliances, IT and
telecom-munications equipments, and lighting equipment, electrical and
electronic tools, toys, leisure and sports equipment, medical devices,
monitoring and control equipments and automatic dispensers. The guidelines for
assessment of hazardousness of e-waste have been described in terms of basis,
rational, approach and methodo­logy. The draft has identified the e-waste
category items, e-waste composition, possible hazardous content in e-waste, as
well as is identifying whether the component is hazardous or the entire e-waste
item is hazardous.

The increase of electronic products, consumption rates and higher obsolescence rate leads to higher generation of e-waste

No plants in sight

“At present, there is no e-waste recycling plant in India, and those which
exist are more of dismantlers and segregators. The guidelines have enlisted the
various environment-friendly measures to be adopted by the recycling facility.
The guidelines will channelize the recycling process and will see an e-waste
disposal ecosystem out in place,” the source said.

He added, “The environ­­mentally sound technologies for e-waste treatment
involves complex treatment technologies, which may be located at different
locations.”

Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, Manufacturers' Asso­ciation of Information
Technology (MAIT) said that the government should ensure that the laws are more
stringent and refined. “More than 40 percent of the industry is unorganized, and
hence it becomes the stake­holders' responsibility when it comes to e-waste
management. There is also a needs to be an economic model attached to the
recycling plants, as it is not seen as a profitable venture till date. Moreover,
people might not be willing to pay for disposing off their e-waste. India can
also be a destination for e-waste dumping and the law has to take lot of that
too. We have given our suggestions to the government in this regard,” Mehta
said.

Monitoring requirement

Industry observers opine that such a move-although welcome -should have a
monitoring mechanism in place for successful implementation. They felt that the
government should also consider offering financial subsidy to companies willing
to set-up recycling facilities in the country.

MAIT estimated that the Indian PC industry is growing at a compounded annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 25 percent. This growth has significant economic and
social impacts. The increase of electronic products, consump­tion rates and
higher obsoles­cence rate leads to higher gene­ration of e-waste. The increasing
obsolescence rates of electronic products added to the huge import of junk
electronics from abroad create complicte scenario for solid waste management in
India. The e-waste inventory based on this obsolescence rate and installed base
in India for the year 2005 has been estimated to be 1,46,180 tons. This is
expected to exceed to 8,00,000 tons by 2012. 65 cities in India generate more
than 60 percent of the total e-waste generated in the country.

10 states generate 70 percent of the total e-waste generated in India:
Maharashtra ranks first followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,
West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.

Among top 10 cities gene­rating e-waste, Mumbai ranks first followed by
Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur.

There are two small WEEE/e-waste dismantling facilities functioning in
Chennai and Bangalore. However, there is no large-scale e-waste recycling
facility in India and the entire recycling happen in the unorganized sector.

R JAI KRISHNA

CyberMedianews