India grabbles with its e-waste – urgent legislation need of the hour

Brand-new computers in offices, modern televisions in middle-class homes and mobile phones everywhere are all signs of India's recent economic growth. But what happens to these mini-luxuries when their owners want to replace them?

Wilson Coutinho from Goa, had one such problem at hand, he wanted to discard his junk laptop. But, how to go about disposing his computer was a complex question troubling this environmentally conscious, former state footballer.

 He is not only the only one to face the dilemma.

The country does not have an all India law to deal with e-waste. Kerala is the only state which has drafted legislation, while elsewhere state and central legislators have not applied their mind in putting legislation in place.

Big cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai have private stakeholders like E-Parisram and Ramky taking care of electronic waste disposal.

“Recently Greenpeace organized a protest at Zenith's factory in Zuarinagar, Vasco, Goa, by installing a big snail asking the company to start clean production. This was part of our ongoing campaign to mobilise and motivate the IT companies to phase out toxics chemicals and metals from their products, take back their discarded products for responsible recycling and lobby for e-waste law in India,” said an official of Greenpeace.

 In Goa, Toxics Links and Greenpeace has been exerting pressure in the past on the stake holders and government to bring about a legislation to take care of the electronic waste in Goa, but nothing has had happened so far.

In the past Toxics and  Greenpeace, has been quite successful in campaigning against polluting industries, and getting big companies in India like Wipro, Samsung, HCL  and Acer to take care of their electronic waste.

Discarded computers, printers, fax machines, phones, TVs and refrigerators today end up at illegal recyclers. They end with people like Abdul Basit. His nimble 13-year-old fingers rip open them  who begins to process the waste using unsafe and crude techniques, over an open fire, to extract valuable
metals.

He uses no protective equipment as he inhales the deadly vapours eating into his body. Eventually the little Bihar-bom Mumbai-based boy could die of the poisoning – but he does not know that.

Greenpeace and other environmentalists say illegal e-waste recycling is dangerous because it emits toxic gases and harms the health of workers involved.

As sales of consumer electronics soar in India, the country faces a twin-boom in electronic waste. Domestic e-waste could reach 1.6m tonnes a year by 2012, up from the current 330,000 tonnes, says New Delhi-based research firm International Resource Group.

Industry groups estimate that the number of mobile phones in India will more than double from 286m today to 559m by 2011; computers will more than quadruple from 16m to 75m by 2010; and TV sets will triple from 78m to 234m by 2015.

Greenpeace is now working with India's Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT) to propose a draft e-waste law that would make electronic companies financially accountable for ensuring the take-back and recycling of their products.

”It's high time we take corrective actions to contain the problem,” says Vinnie Mehta,executive director of Mait.

For the law to work, India will have to improve its e-waste recycling infrastructure. The country has only three licensed and ill-equipped recyclers. Engaging consumers will also be a challenge: Indian
households prefer to sell their discarded electronics to scrap dealers for cash, rather than take products back to manufacturers for recycling.

Till then the electronics brands in India face an uphill task to make sure their products are safely recycled.