Implementation Challenges for Better e-Waste Management in India

The challenges of e-waste management can be classified as lack of appropriate infrastructure, legislation and framework for end-of-life products. The following describe the implementation challenges for better e-Waste management in India:

·         Due to diversion of large chunk of e-wastes from retail consumers to informal recyclers and demand-supply mismatch organized e-recyclers are not getting adequate e-wastes to recycle.

·         Lack of legislation has been the core concern for e-waste management. There is no centralized mandatory or strict legislation in this regard. For better management, the legislation must clearly define e-waste and the limitations in terms of quantities of e-waste generated.

·         Collection centers are currently present only in a few cities in India and the collection process for these facilities are restricted due to logistical and geographical problems.

·         Lack of motivation for the top management of producers is one of the major concerns and is unable to drive the e-Waste management initiative.

·         Donation of obsolete equipments by companies to schools without any monitoring as to what happens to the donated material when it reaches its end of life. Hence the loop of reverse supply chain is unable to function in an organized manner.

·         There is no recycler for materials of lamps (CFL bulb, tube light etc.) in India because of cheaper sources in China. Hence lamp recycling is a great challenge in India. There is no recycler for Ni-Cd batteries, Alkaline batteries and Dry cell batteries within the country. Such materials are either dumped in landfills resulting in loss of resources or exported to authorized recyclers in foreign countries resulting in logistic costs.

·         There is a lack of authorized recyclers for Ni-MH batteries and Li-ion batteries in the country. There are some back-yard recyclers for Ni-MH and Li-ion batteries but are unregistered with the MoEF.

So, Formal e-recyclers have to be supported by the central and the state governments to avoid the bottlenecks in building a better reverse supply chain of E-waste. In the long run formal e-recyclers have to be merged and have to make a presence of an influential body in this industry. They can do lobbying with the government to promote some innovative methods of collecting e-waste from retail consumers and promote awareness of the environmental impact of e-waste.