A recent UN report titled ‘A new circular vision for electronics’ warned that ‘Tsunami of e-waste’ was to hit the world soon. The report notes that the waste stream has already reached 48.5 million tonnes (MT) in 2018 and the figure is expected to double if nothing changes. In India, e-Waste accounts for 70% of the landfills. (2011 Rajya Sabha Secretariat Study). By 2050, India will likely stare at a pile of a new category of electronic waste, namely solar e-waste.  India’s PV (photovoltaic) waste volume is estimated to grow to 200,000 tonnes by 2030 and around 1.8 million tonnes by 2050.

Body:

The root causes of India’s e-Waste problem are:

• e- Waste is technically all waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) discarded without the intent of use.
• It comprises not just electronic items, but also all electrical equipment that involves anything with a plug, electric cord or battery.
• In recent years, e-waste has grown faster than earlier anticipated. By 2021, the annual total volume is expected to surpass 52 MT, considering the fact that the number of devices connected to the internet is going to be between 25-50 billion by 2020. By 2050, the volume of e-waste in the worst-case scenario, could top 120 MT annually.
• In India, e waste accounts for 4% of global e-waste and 2.5% of global GDP (2014 figures) – so it has a higher share of e-waste than its share of gross domestic product (GDP).
• The informal sector manages about 95% of the e-Waste in India. Due to the informal and crude processing techniques, the soil, water and air are polluted to a beyond-repairable level. Example: Moradabad and Seelampur.
• The hard-to-recover substances from e-waste like mercury, arsenic make their home in landfills and keep leaching into ground water.
• Incineration is one of the most practiced methods of recycling leading to high carbon emissions and poisoning of air with toxic gases.
• The poor implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility as mandated under e-Waste Management Rules, 2016 is another challenge.
• The export of e-Waste from developed countries is another growing problem despite regulations under Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal.

Causes for failure of rules and regulations for e-Waste:

• India has 19 PROs (producer responsibility organisations), which are hired for collection as of today but there is no level playing field.
• There is no independent mechanism to verify if EPR is being implemented. The law mandates random inspections by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and state PCBs, but there’s no record of them.
• The issues of how to address the ones using the products: how do you get people to hand back their products in a reasonable way.
• The lack of companies’ initiative to build an image of a responsible actor, of someone consumers can believe in.
• Customer care representatives do not have inkling about any take back or recycling programme and even if they have set up collection centres, they are simply not enough for a geographically vast country like India.
• India being a vast country, setting up collection mechanism is a big challenge. If any of the brands try individually to reach out to all corners of the country, it will economically not be sustainable or feasible.

Measures to control the e-Waste growth:

• Unified effort: The report calls for systematic collaboration with major brands, small and medium-sized enterprises, academia, trade unions, civil society and associations in a deliberative process to reorient the system and reduce the waste of resources each year with a value greater than the GDP of most countries.
• Holistic management: To capture the global value of materials in e-waste and create global circular value chains, use new technology to create service business models, better product tracking and manufacturer or retailer take-back programmes.
• Scaling up recycling: The report notes that material efficiency, recycling infrastructure and scaling up the volume and quality of recycled materials to meet the needs of electronics supply chains will all be essential for future production.
• Incentivization: The producers should also have buy-back or return offers for old equipment, and plans to incentivise the consumer financially. The report also advocates a system of ‘urban mining’ by strengthening the extended producer responsibility provision.
• Job potential: If the electronics sector is supported with the right policy mix and managed in the right way, it could lead to the creation of millions of decent jobs worldwide.
• Awareness & Education: there is an acute lack of awareness among people as they simply don’t know that there exist collection centres that collect items for recycling. The law will fail to serve the purpose unless these changes are made on the ground.

Conclusion:

A strong political will is required to come out with strict regulations to manage e waste in India. Increased public awareness is the need of hour. It is now to be seen how the stakeholders who turned a blind eye to the rules so far, proceed ahead.