Managing E-Waste in India: Adoption of Need Based Solutions

Near to two decade after the Basel Convention (BC) under United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), most of the nations are still working for Waste Electrical and JIBC December 2011, Vol. 16, No.3 2 Electronic Equipment (WEEE) or E-waste disposal programme. The Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal is the most comprehensive global environmental agreement on hazardous and other wastes; which aims to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects resulting from the generation, management, transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous and other wastes (http://www.basel.int/). In the 1990s the focus was set on the control over toxic substances by means of smart design for recycling and manual disassembly of hazardous components in the recycling phase itself. Experiences of the last ten years show that electronic waste policies should serve multiple and broader societal goals. Developments in shredding and separation technologies have led to the realisation that dismantling as such does not bring the desired toxic control, as it depends much more on the destination of disassembled components, and there are relatively high costs involved. The recovery of valuable materials and energy preservation has also become much more important. There is an obvious change in thinking and approach to WEEE (Puja Sawhney et. al. 2008). This paper presents the preliminary findings of a research study to identify the various popular methods of managing e-waste in India and reasons for employing those methods.