State pollution board gets serious about e-waste, to have 8 more recycling plants
State pollution board gets serious about e-waste, to have 8 more recycling plants
Call it a by-product of the electronic age we live in. To tackle this, the state has felt the need for 'dumpyards' to junk electronic waste (e-waste).
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| What is e-waste? | |
| Electronic waste, e-waste, u00a0e-scrap, or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) describes loosely discarded, surplus, obsolete, or broken electrical or electronic devices. Some electronic scrap components, such as CRTs, contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, mercury, and brominated flame retardants. | |
"In coming months, we expect more than eight e-waste plants in the metropolis and more elsewhere across the state," said Regional Officer of MPCB, Dr Y B Sontakke. "However, these plants are not fully equipped with required infrastructure to recycle e-waste and they will only dismantle it."
Sontakke said that e-waste is one of the factors that contributes to global warming.
Nobody's aware
S John Robert, CEO of Earth Sense, the state's second e-waste facility operating for the last three months in Bhiwandi, said the awareness is lacking among people.
"The first month and second months, we got 600 kg and 1 tonne of e-waste respectively for a plant that has a capacity to manage 250 tonnes," said Robert.
| u00a0 | |
| Recycling sites | |
| Bhiwandi: 2 Thane: 2 Pune: 2 Murbad: 1 Vasai: 1 70% Percentage of heavy metals in US landfills that comes from discarded electronics | |
"Encouraging recycling is the need of the hour," said Vinnie Mehta, executive director of Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology. "Of the 10 authorised recyclers who can extract precious metal from scrap, only two plants -- one in Roorkee, the other in Chennai -- have infrastructure to refine metal."
Future estimates
By 2020, India's e-waste from old computers will rise by 500 per cent as compared to what it was in 2007 while e-waste from cellphones has been forecast to leap 18-fold.
This estimate has been made by 'Recycling -- from e-Waste to Resources', a report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program.
UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner has said that India may also face rising environmental damage and health problems if e-waste recycling is left to the unorganised sector.
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