Need for Comprehensive Solutions The chairman of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board at a recent workshop called for a national policy to manage electronic waste. The ministry of environment and forests is reportedly looking at separate laws under the existing Environment Protection Act to address the problem. The menace of electronic waste in India, which is being increasingly documented by independent agencies and the media, is finally attracting the attention of some of the worst affected states and even some industry chambers. That toxic chemicals and gases are released in the dissembling and recycling of these products and that there is complete lack of protection for workers in the largely unorganised recycling trade are well established. This is apart from the problems posed by the final disposal of the waste in land fills and incinerators, and the resulting pollution of the surrounding soil and groundwater. The problem of electronic waste will have to be tackled on two fronts: the proper management of indigenously produced waste, which is growing rapidly with the greater penetration and rapid obsolescence of IT products, as well as the control of electronic waste imports that are dumped and/or

ELECTRONIC WASTE

Need for ComprehensiveSolutions

he chairman of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board at a recent workshop called for a national policy to manage electronic waste. The ministry of environment and forests is reportedly looking at separate laws under the existing Environment Protection Act to address the problem. The menace of electronic waste in India, which is being increasingly documented by independent agencies and the media, is finally attracting the attention of some of the worst affected states and even some industry chambers. That toxic chemicals and gases are released in the dissembling and recycling of these products and that there is complete lack of protection for workers in the largely unorganised recycling trade are well established. This is apart from the problems posed by the final disposal of the waste in land fills and incinerators, and the resulting pollution of the surrounding soil and groundwater. The problem of electronic waste will have to be tackled on two fronts: the proper management of indigenously produced waste, which is growing rapidly with the greater penetration and rapid obsolescence of IT products, as well as the control of electronic waste imports that are dumped and/or “recycled” from other developed countries. A national policy on e-waste is certainly in order, though present laws continue to provide ample loopholes for an almost unrestricted trade in hazardous wastes (HW). Ultimately, however, the solutions must lie in a critical shift in the way electronic goods are produced and recycled; and the legal regime must support and enable these changes. But the infrastructure required to deal with e-waste remains appallingly inadequate in a country that has experienced something of an IT boom. The Central Pollution Control Board is planning to commence a registration process for e-waste management units and was to come up with a national plan for e-waste that is still awaited. There is also a need for state pollution control boards to develop scientific land fills that would be effectively sealed off from the environment through HDPE sheets and layers of clay for the disposal of e-waste.

The Hazardous Waste Rules, 1989 were enacted to ostensibly control the handling and management of hazardous waste (HW, including e-waste), but they contain virtually no penal provisions and are themselves quite vague and subjective. Similarly though the rules ban the import of HW for the purposes of disposal and dumping, imports are allowed for “processing” or “reuse”. At the ports, mislabelling of goods, exemptions provided by obliging customs officials and a flagrant flouting of the rule of prior informed consent for import of HW enable the trade to flourish and function with impunity. For obvious reasons, India has chosen not to ratify the 1994 amendment to the Basel Convention, which bans outright the export of HW from the wealthy countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to all non-OECD countries. In fact, even if India

Economic and Political Weekly June 17, 2006

attempts a complete ban it is entirely imaginable that the trade would simply continue underground. The largest exporter of HW to India, the US, has not ratified the Basel Convention and remains stoutly opposed to it along with other countries such as Australia, Canada and Japan.

The problem is that as long as companies are allowed to externalise the cost of recycling and disposal of electronic waste, the incentive to develop less toxic and easier to recycle products simply does not exist. So far the cost of state-ofthe-art recycling, especially for items like computers, has exceeded the value of the material that can be salvaged. This is also what has encouraged the development of an informal and fragmented industry in developing countries to do the “dirty work”. In this respect, the European Community has shown the way forward with its “extended producer responsibility” directive that enjoins producers of electronic goods with the task of recovering and recycling the e-waste they generate. It also requires producers to phase out the use of hazardous chemicals by 2008. Already there are companies that offer “take back” schemes to their customers, while others such as Samsung, Toshiba and LG have committed to eschew toxic chemicals such as PVC in their manufacturing. The countries that insist on safer chemicals and metals in electronics have found that companies are willing to manufacture and ship such products to them. Besides, the business of recycling electronic goods has to reflect its true costs in developing countries such as India, including that of automated and safer processing and worker protection. Only when the government insists on these can costs be expected to rise, and thus negate some of the incentives for HW trade. m

Economic and Political Weekly June 17, 2006

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Electronic Waste: Need for Comprehensive Solutions

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