E-waste: awareness and disposal perceptions among youth in Delhi
Student name: Ms Pallavi Gulati
Guide: Dr Suneel Pandey
Year of completion: 2015
Host Organisation: Indo German Environment Partnership Programme (IGEP), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusa
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Rachna Arora
Abstract: Electronic Waste (E-waste) is a burgeoning global environment challenge and India has been rated as the fifth largest producer of E-waste in the world in 2014 (Anon, 2015). According to a MAIT study (Mandal, 2011); only 60% of the e-waste gets back to recycling channels. And, only 10% of this recycled E-waste goes through the formal channels in India that are safer while more than 90% of the available waste goes to in-efficient & unsafe processing in the unorganized sector, mainly in the urban slums of metros and mini-metros (Arora, 2014). Although it is a significant source of employment in the unorganized sector, it poses serious environmental as well as health hazards effectively leading to not more than 15-20% of total e-waste being actually getting recycled in the country. If this situation remains unchecked, it is going to become an insurmountable problem for India.
The policy framework in India for dealing with E-waste is nascent and has not been able to encourage consumers to be a part of the formal recycling mechanism (Satish Sinha, 2012). The role of consumers becomes significantly important, more so by the new law, where the big manufacturers and sellers of electronic goods are now required to source the e-waste for safe disposal and recycling. This research study conducted with the students of Delhi corroborates with this fact and finds that 46% of respondents keep the e-waste (primarily mobile phones and laptops) in their homes. The level of awareness about its disposal practices and legal mechanisms among this educated mass in Delhi is poor and indicative of the awareness levels in rest of the country.
However, on the positive side, the study reflects that 97% of the consumers are willing to give their E-waste to formal recyclers for an appropriate value and 84% of the consumers are ready to go for the ‘deposit-refund system’, a new addition in the 2015 draft rules of e-waste. (MoEF&CC, 2015). The key policy recommendations of the study are the need for building powerful narratives for safe disposal of the E-waste among consumers, making formal recyclers more visible and viable by ensuring greater access to e-waste, ensuring that EEE manufacturers make viable business models around e-waste collection systems, stricter enforcement of rules and implementing the deposit-refund systems. Keywords: WEEE, Recycling, Youth, Deposit-Refund, EPR
