Onus on producers to manage e-waste

Thiruvananthapuram: Wonder what happened to the first fridge in your neighbourhood? After decades of exemplary service, one day it would have been put to eternal death in a scrap yard. What after that? The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has decided to do something about the afterlife of electronic waste, lest it should turn into toxic waste.

The E-Waste Management Rules 2016, notified by the Ministry, puts the onus on producers. The copy of the Rule is not available online, but its salient features published by Press Information Bureau reads, “(E-waste) collection is now exclusively the Producer’s responsibility, which can set up collection centre or point or even can arrange buy-back mechanism for such collection.”

Experts say that though Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was introduced in E-Waste Management Rules 2011, the new rules have made it more stringent. For, there is a provision for levying financial penalty should they fail to properly manage e-waste, causing damage to the environment or a third party.

The ministry has chosen a target-based approach. Producers are expected to collect 30 per cent of the quantity of waste generation as indicated in EPR plan, in the first two years. The percentage would be increased from 30 per cent to 40 per cent, 50 per cent, 60 per cent and finally 70 per cent.

“The urban local body is supposed to take care of the e-waste, which producers cannot handle. In Kerala we have been doing it since 2014,” says Clean Kerala Company MD Kabeer B Haroon. However, are the producers ready to take responsibility? It is not going to be easy as Kerala does not have recycling companies. Moreover, not everything can be recycled or reused, and there is a need for infrastructure like high-voltage furnaces.

“It took about 8 years for Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules to be implemented, though it was introduced in 1998,” says a Clean Kerala official.

Hardware dealers have tie-ups with recyclers in other states. Suresh Babu, former President of All Kerala IT Dealers’ Association (AKITDA), says, “We hand over scrap to dealers, who have linkages with recyclers outside the state. From what I have heard, they burn motherboards, and take out metals like copper used in it. The CRT monitors are recycled and turned into TV monitors, which are sold cheaply in Mumbai’s slums,” he says.

Before the Basel convention, defunct electronic goods from first world countries would land on Indian shores. “Remember how computers from abroad would be given away as freebies to children, or sold cheaply? Many of those were not even working. Recycling waste would cost them more dollars than bringing it to India. That stopped when we hardware dealers campaigned against it,” says Suresh.

While the Rules impose financial penality on Producers, it might be difficult to keep a track on who the violators are. For one, one does not know where the scraps we dump go to. Clean Kerala company has collected 215 tonne waste so far. “Data on e-waste is scarce. State Pollution Control Board states on their site that e-waste is growing three times faster than other solid waste,” says Kabeer B Haroon.

The complete implications of the Rules will be known only after it is published in its complete form. However, in general, it is regarded as an initiative that is good for the environment.