Few government programmes have caught the public imagination like the Swachh Bharat Mission. Swachh Bharat, at its core, deals with the management of waste. Therefore, it is surprising that public awareness is limited on the fastest growing waste stream - electronic waste - and on our current failure at managing it.
A large number of electronic gadgets ends up as waste every year in India. Over two million metric tonnes of electronic waste was produced in India in 2016. The number is increasing rapidly as the use of electronics increases. A huge amount of electronic waste produced by other countries also ends up in India. Some studies report that almost 70 per cent of electronic waste handled in India is produced elsewhere in spite of a reported import ban on electronic waste.
Unfortunately, India is able to recycle only one or two per cent of its electronic waste. Most other waste remains in landfills or informal dumps, leading to health and environmental concerns on account of the toxic material found in such waste. In fact, electronic waste constitutes, by far, the largest fraction of toxic waste in a landfill in India. Even for the small fraction of electronic waste that is being recycled, the informal sector handles over 90 per cent of the recycling. The lack of tools, training and resources makes this sector - one million strong with over 50 per cent children - particularly vulnerable.
The government has attempted to address the issue in the last few years. Regulations were introduced in 2008 and 2011 for the formal sector. The import of electronic waste was banned in 2010. Electronic waste management rules were notified in 2016 to increase recycling and reduce the production of electronic waste. Extended Producer Responsibility was introduced to make electronics producers liable to collect the waste.
Private-sector participation has also increased in recent times. The number of electronic recycling companies has increased; the number of electronics companies offering collection centres and collection mechanisms has also risen.
Why then do we still recycle only one or two per cent of the waste? First, the government's attention has primarily been on the formal sector even though most of the recycling is handled by the informal sector. Second, the focus has been on regulations, not economic incentives. Informal recyclers do not have an incentive to either sell to the formal recyclers (since hand-processing is currently more profitable) or to formalize (since the formalization process currently costs almost 10 lakh rupees). Formal recyclers do not have the necessary inducement to perform full recycling. It is cheaper to perform partial recycling and either dump the remains or route them to the informal sector. Electronics producers also do not invest in recycling considering the lack of public awareness. Third, current regulations and collection targets are practically unenforceable given the lack of formal collection and recycling infrastructure in the country.
Considering that the problem will keep getting worse (one study estimates a 3X increase in electronic waste in the next three years), we must rethink the solutions. Economic incentives must be created for more effective recycling. For example, formal recycling centres could pay a delivery fee higher than the value of hand-processing to encourage the informal sector to deliver electronic waste to the recycling centres. Recycling centres could be paid a deposit on recycling: the deposit must be higher than the cost of component materials. Electronics producers could be mandated to put in a recycling fee into the price such that deposits can be made to the recycling centres.
Beyond economic incentives, the government must directly address the needs of the informal sector - lowering the cost of formalization, skill and knowledge transfer, and safety and efficiency training. Research and development should be supported for lower-cost recycling technologies: this will enable safer recycling and the growth of the formal sector. A mixture of incentives and regulations should be employed to encourage the use of environment-friendly material in electronics. Border control should be better enforced to prevent smuggling of electronic waste from developed countries. Lessons from successful public-private partnerships should be applied to set up collection and distribution logistics and incentives. The vastness of the informal sector network should be leveraged to perform last-mile collection. Support needs to be provided to build recycling smelters in India (most formal recycling centres send electronic waste to overseas smelters to recover precious metals).
India must attempt to meet the aspirations of its citizens, but not at the expense of health and environment. The problem of electronic waste needs immediate attention.
