India Need to Adopt Stricter Policies to Kill Alarming E-Waste Threat

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): India is in desperate need of a new mechanism to deal with rising e-waste volumes in the country.

As per estimates, the country produces nearly 2.5 million metric tonnes of electronic waste every single year. The volume of e-waste generated in the country has witnessed an annual growth of around 20-30% over the past several years. This trend is likely to increase in future, mainly due to widespread dumping of old devices on account of consumers’ preference to switch to latest and technologically advanced electronic gadgets.

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Alarmingly, only around 1.5% of the e-waste generated in the country is recycled, with the rest ending up in landfills or open spaces. The country lacks strict e-waste laws or a proper collection and recycling mechanism. Much of the collection and recycling are carried out by informal players.

The country must revisit it e-waste management policy and do the needful to create awareness among its citizens on the need to recycle electronics. The proper implementation of an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) could also be an effective solution.