Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh 
India, the world’s third-largest electronic waste (e-waste) producer as per the United Nation’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020, is struggling to handle this toxic waste. The grim situation exists even though government documents suggest that the country has enough installed capacity to recycle its e-waste.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the nodal agency responsible for e-waste management in the country, claims the country has 407 authorised e-waste dismantlers/recyclers that can scientifically handle 1.1 million tonnes per annum. The country generated an almost equal amount of e-waste in 2019-20, the most recent numbers submitted by CPCB end of January 2021 to the National Green Tribunal. Yet, a minuscule percentage of the entire E-waste gets collected.
There are two distinct reasons behind the problem: widespread leakages in the e-waste collection channel and inflated on paper capacity of e-waste dismantlers/recyclers.
For instance, India collected just 10 per cent of the e-waste generated in 2018-19 and 3.5 per cent of that generated in 2017-18. The collection numbers are so low that it even falls short of the unambitious targets set under the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016 which state that at least 20 per cent of e-waste generated in 2018-19 should be collected. For 2017-18, the target was 5 per cent. The CPCB is yet to release the collection data for 2019-20. What is known though is that the country saw a 32 percent jump in the e-waste generation in 2019-20 from the 0.77 million tonnes generated in 2018-19.
There are two distinct reasons behind the problem: widespread leakages in the e-waste collection channel and inflated on paper capacity of e-waste dismantlers/recyclers.
There are several stakeholders that play a role in the e-waste collection channel. The three major e-waste generators in the country are individual consumers, bulk consumers such as companies and government departments, and finally the electrical and electronic industry. A major share of the e-waste generated by individuals and bulk consumers ends up in the informal sector, suggests the recently released e-waste management in India report by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). “The poor reach of formal collectors and the unwillingness of the consumers to take ownership of waste produced by them” are in a big way responsible for the low collection rate in the country, says the CSE report.
Even in the case of electronic device producers such as computers and mobile phone companies, leakages have been found. This is surprising as the 2016 rules clearly say it is the producers’ responsibility to collect end-of-life electronic products as part of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The country has 1,630 producers with EPR authorisation and 186 producers had been issued notices by CPCB for not meeting their EPR targets in 2018-19. The pollution control board also pulled up 292 producers in November last year because their collection centres were either non-complying or non-traceable and threatened to cancel their EPR authorisation and take action as per E-waste Management Rules, 2016. The producers are required to file their EPR details by June 30 of each year. However, 523 producers defaulted in 2018-19.
Leakages are also rampant downstream as even the authorised dismantlers/recyclers pass on their e-waste to the informal sector leading to inefficient recovery and disposal. While admitting to the leakages by recyclers, CPCB in its report to the tribunal says “dismantlers and recyclers have been given processing capacity beyond their actual processing capacity by the SPCBs/PCCs (state pollution control boards)”. As per the rules, dismantlers need a space of 300 square metres for a capacity of 1 tonne of e-waste per day. The same for recyclers is 500 square metre. In one instance, CPCB noted that the capacity of a dismantler increased eight times without any increase in the corresponding shed area, the report says. This makes sense as days after CPCB submitted the 2018-19 e-waste generation data to the tribunal, it updated its list of recyclers/dismantlers to match the waste generation data.
The solution instead lies in strengthening the e-waste collection mechanism and for this, state pollution control boards will need to play a crucial role. While on the one hand, individual users need to be sensitized to the challenge of e-waste and how they contribute to the same, on the other hand, close monitoring is required to deter producers and recyclers from leaking the waste to the informal sector. This is extremely crucial today especially because India’s e-waste is set to increase as the Union government is pushing local production through its Make in India campaign.
Mr Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh is a Deputy Programme Manager at Centre for Science and Environment and contributing writer at Down to Earth.
