Country's first e-waste disposal demo plant to come up in B'luru

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) has initiated the process of setting up the country’s first e-waste disposal demonstration plant in Bengaluru with indigenous technology.

“Upon the success of the plant, the Centre plans to set up similar facilities in different parts of the country,” the government informed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology.

DEITY has developed a technology for segregating and extracting metals from printed circuit boards and plastics out of e-waste. The plastics can be taken out, categorised and reused to make car bumpers and switches and they are trying to transfer the technology to manufacturers for making value-added goods, the government told the panel.

The government said that upon the success of the Bengaluru plant, the department may plan to transfer the technology to any manufacturer who would like to use it and recycle waste.

To encourage private entrepreneurs, the government is also providing 25 per cent cash-back on the capital expenditure for e-waste processing plants. Besides, the government also plans to encourage formal recyclers or entrepreneurs to apply through MSIP (modified special incentive package scheme) under Deity to avail subsidy for creating recycle plants in India.

The government recently informed parliament that a UN report earlier had stated that India was the fifth biggest producer of e-waste in the world, discarding 1.7 million tonnes of electronic and electrical equipment in 2014. However, a report by an Indian organisation pegged electronic and electric waste generated in the country in 2009 at 4.34 lakh metric tonnes.

Aiming to address the issue, the Ministry of Forests and Environment published the draft of the E-waste (Management) Rules 2015 which puts the absolute liability on producers of such waste and their safe disposal. The provisions of the draft rules include expanding producers’ responsibility in the form of Extended Producer Responsibility, setting up of Producers Responsibility Organisations and E-waste Exchange.

It also includes assigning specific responsibility to bulk consumers of electronic products for safe disposal, providing for economic incentives for collection of electronic waste and other measures.