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Managing e-waste

Rapidly rising volumes of electronic waste have given rise to concerns about the efficient management of the same. Kushal Shah writes that India has to get organized vis-à-vis e-waste management in order to avert an environmental catastrophe in the future

Everyone is busy talking about growth, booming IT, and high GDP, but few are concerned about the side-effects of this growth for humankind and its environment. Technologies are rapidly changing and users are continuously tossing away resources such as desktops, servers, networking products and communication devices. The end result is that old products end up on the dust heap as e-waste, which can be extremely hazardous if not managed properly.

Typically, e-waste or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is waste consisting of any broken or unwanted electrical or electronic appliance that has been disposed off either after its usable life ends, or as unwanted byproducts generated during manufacturing. It includes electrical and electronic devices like entertainment electronics, computers, mobile phones, refrigerators, lamps and their components.

A preliminary investigation by the WEEE taskforce has estimated that the total WEEE generation in India is approximately 1,46,000 tones per year. To give it an IT focus, an estimated 30,000 computers become obsolete every year from the IT industry in Bangalore alone. “The issue of e-waste management is assuming mammoth dimensions in today’s world with the ever-growing usage of electrical and electronic items. If the world buys many millions of electronic products every year, several millions of old ones are discarded as e-waste, which is a big concern,” said George Paul, Executive Vice-President, HCL Infosystems.

A hazardous affair

“E-waste is a global concern today and it can have a far-reaching, adverse impact on the environment if not dealt with immediately. Awareness of e-waste management is the key for its disposal in a safe manner,” said Ashutosh Vaidya Vice-President, Personal Computing, Wipro Infotech.

The side-effects of incorrect disposal or recycling can be quite hazardous. Improper disposal of e-waste can lead to toxic emissions such as Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBBs) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs). These occur principally during the incineration of e-waste at low temperatures, especially when it is burnt in the open in the absence of an organized process for recycling in an environment-friendly way. “What is happening here is that the waste is usually picked up by the unorganized sector. To extract something like copper from a wire they do open air burning of the same, which is extremely hazardous for the environment. We really do not have an organized end-to-end recycler in the country,” said Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, MAIT. Another process which these unorganized players follow while extracting metals from PCB is that they dip PCBs in acid and when the work is done, they throw it down a drain or in an open space, which again is dangerous.

Another level of threat comes from the illegal recycling of e-waste. “In India, a large amount of e-waste is imported for recycling by the unorganized sector. Apart from adding to the existing volume of e-waste generated within the country, the conditions and processes by which e-waste is recycled are not environmentally-friendly,” added Paul. This, in turn, results in toxic substances escaping and damaging the environment. Apart from this, illegal recycling also leads to health hazards for the labor force engaged in the disposal process.

Industry-wide movement

Despite the abysmal lack of awareness and initiative regarding safe e-waste management in the country, many large organizations understand its importance and are taking certain steps to ensure the safe disposal of e-waste.

HCL, for example, has tied up with two government-approved agencies for this purpose—Trishiraya and Eparisara, which are basically into dismantling of e-waste. They segregate the waste into different usable parts and give it to appropriate organizations which can make use of them.

Sun Microsystems, apart from taking the help of organizations such as Eparisara for recycling, also has certain internal policies in place. At Sun, old fluorescent light tubes are accumulated and sent for recovery and recycling of heavy metals (mercury) in the tubes, the steel caps, and the glass itself; toner and fax cartridges are collected and recycled; binders are reused by local schools and charitable organizations; employees conduct periodic clean sweeps to recycle furniture, CDs, software and hardware.

Wipro, like other IT companies with a large number of employees, generates a huge amount of e-waste. “All the e-waste generated within Wipro is recycled through certified agencies such as Trishiraya and the recycling process is rigorously monitored. The vendor sorts out and disposes the e-waste based on category. We monitor the agencies according to guidelines given by the relevant pollution control authorities,” stated Vaidya.

Some of the large players are combining their corporate social responsibility and e-waste management by giving away old machines to poor students and educational institutions. While doing so, they just need to make sure of one thing—that the machines they are giving away are in usable condition so that the maintenance cost is minimal.

Some organizations, Sun Microsystems is one such, are proactively involved in managing their customers’ e-waste. “Sun has implemented a global product returns program that recycles, reclaims, and reuses components or entire systems. End-users can return their end-of-life equipment to Sun for recycling, reuse, or proper disposal,” said Jaijit Bhattacharya, Country Director, Government Strategy, Sun Microsystems India.

Wipro Infotech, on the other hand, has set up an e-waste management process called Wipro Green Computing, which spans the product lifecycle from design and manufacturing, right up to final disposal. Wipro is now launching a range of eco-friendly hardware products to make its entire product range of laptops and desktops compliant with RoHS (Restriction on usage of Hazardous Substance) directive, which limits the use of harmful components in products. HCL is also planning to launch similar initiatives for its personal computing products.

Formula for success

Government approved organized players who can recycle used machines, without any harm to the environment, are the need of the hour for this country that is generating more and more e-waste every day.

Some players are already geared up for this process. “We are trying to solve e-waste management worries with an organized system. Without using any chemicals and disturbing the environment, we will process electronic waste using modern machinery,” stated BK Soni, Managing Director, Infotrek Syscom. This is one of the many companies that is planning a move into organized e-waste management. Infotrek has already tied up with a German technology provider and a Canadian collaborator and will be starting organized recycling operations in early 2008. In this model, after waste is collected, it will be segregated into computers in relatively good condition that will be refurbished and given to poor students and educational institutions and non-reusable parts that will be processed and recycled using machines.

Mehta asserted that there can be various other models that can use both organized and unorganized sectors, for the collection and recycling process. Unorganized players can collect e-waste and handle the logistics, and then organized players can take careof the recycling process. Even governmental organizations can play a role in taking this industry further through public-private partnerships.

The profitability of such businesses is yet to be tested, since, as far as expensive metal extraction is concerned, only mobile phones and computer recycling look like lucrative business propositions as of now, and the rest depends on the business model adopted by the vendors.

Government: the guiding force

No initiative like this can be successful without support from the government or a governing body. To save the environment and health of millions suffering from toxic elements, there has to be a guiding force. Unlike the European Union, India is yet to have a legislation for e-waste management, but is in the process of framing one.

The Ministry of Environment and Forest, the Ministry of Information Technology, the National Institute of Metallurgy, and some hardware players and organizations like MAIT, are a part of the committee for the same. At present we are following the WEEE and EU guidelines.

“Besides legislation, another approach is to provide tax incentives to eco-responsible companies, Further, managing e-waste should be one of the prime areas of CSR for companies in the IT sector,” felt Bhattacharya.

Whatever new initiatives are taken in terms of legislation and controlling processes, we have to keep in mind that models which have worked in other countries may be difficult to follow in India. For example, in Europe, this movement was started by consumers—they actually paid the recyclers to manage waste products, but such models are extremely difficult to implement here. No matter how much we grow as an economy, a common Indian desires six rupees for a kilo of paper waste and getting money from him to recycle his desktop is still a farfetched idea. “In short, it’s not only the government or organizations that need to worry about e-waste. Every stakeholder of this industry, including the common consumer, will have to play his part for managing e-waste in the least hazardous way,” said Mehta. The movement of organized e-waste management thus has just begun and we have a long way to go before securing the environment completely.

kushal.shah@expressindia.com