The city has disposed close to 50,000 tonnes of e-waste in the past 10 years from households alone. Though behind when compared to Bangalore and New Delhi, e-waste management is still slowly picking up in the State during the past five years when close to 3% of e-waste generated in homes was recycled.
The announcement was made by Bittech, a Bangalore based e-waste management company in the city here on Tuesday. The company has expressed its willingness to work with the State government to better manage the waste disposal system. “Hyderabad has a good potential to develop its e-waste management system beyond current limitations. The waste which is recycled is mostly being extracted of metals which has become rather costly. Reducing costs to give better results is the key here,” said Arunoday Sinha, CEO of Bittech.
Across the Country, a mere 2.5% of e-waste gets recycled. In India an estimated 1.8 million tonnes of e-waste is generated even as experts say that it is expected to grow to 5.2 million tonnes by 2020. The country’s e-waste product has been increasing by 30%.
Homes lag behind
E-waste recyclers in the city have in the past three years recorded a 30% increase in e-waste collection from industrial areas. However, personal e-waste management, centred round homes have always lagged behind because collecting from individual does not prove profittable for waste managers. E-waste from home, till date are largely managed by workers in the unorganised sector who are neither equipped or trained to do this risky waste management.
According to e-waste management rules-2012 which was amended in 2016, cell phones, personal laptops and other electronic goods which have lost utility value can be returned to the manufacturer. The manufacturer is expected to recycle the product in bulk, the rules States. However, this process is still not implemented in the city as manufacturers have not set up collection centres. “If the exchange scheme where the e-waste is returned to the manufacturer who then charges the customer for waste-management gets implemented, the city’s e-waste disposal levels will increase by at least a few points,” Mr. Sinha said.
In 2016, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation had authorised some collection agents to manage e-waste specifically from homes. As per management logs of 16 collection centres, in one year close to 30 to 40 metric tonnes of e-waste was collected from homes. “If the State focuses on domestic disposal of e-waste it could do better than other metros in the next five years,” Mr. Sinha opined.
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