E Waste recycling facility for Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

Ashwin Aghor

The Mumbai metropolitan region will soon be relieved of the ever growing problem of e-waste. The state government will start a first of its kind plant for scientific recycling of e-waste generated in the region.
“E-waste has become a serious cause of concern for the society and the problem needs to be addressed effectively on priority,” said environment secretary Valsa Nair. The environment department of the state government along with MMRDA will soon start a formal e-waste recycling facility in the region through public private partnership. “The pre-feasibility study conducted by IRG Systems has given highly encouraging results. The report submitted two weeks back, shows that such facility, if created in the MMR, would be highly feasible,” Nair said.
According to research conducted by Greenpeace, Mumbai tops the country with around 50,000 tones of e-waste every year, projected to increase to three lakh tones per annum by the year 2011. The entire e-waste is recycled in un-organised sector under highly hazardous conditions. “The manner in which e-waste is presently recycled, is highly harmful for environment and human health as well,” Nair said. At present total e-waste generation in Mumbai and Pune is to the tune of five lakh metric tones per annum.
Nair said that currently, e-waste is recycled by only two steps like dismentaling and segregating, while recovery of valuable metals and resource recovery are not at all happening. “The major reason for this is that resource recovery facility is available only in Belgium, which proves to be very costly for the recyclers,” Nair said.
The state environment department has completed the study and now MMRDA will invite tenders to set up the facility. “MPCB and the department of environment provided technical support while MMRDA will take care of inviting tenders and providing land for the plant,” Nair said. Tenders will be invited by the end of July and the plant is expected to be completely functional by next year. The plant has become one of the urgent needs of the region as e-waste generation in MMR is expected to be doubled by the year 2050, Nair said.
“The project will be implemented in phased manner. In the first phase, the capacity of the plant would be 7500 tones per annum, which would be increased later. We have plans to start resource recovery facility at the plant in future,” Nair said.
Once the plant is functional, the contractor will establish e-waste collection channel in the region.

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What is E-waste

Electronic waste, e-waste is a waste type consisting of any broken or unwanted electrical or electronic device. Some define electronic waste to include all secondary computers, entertainment devices electronics, mobile phones and other items, whether they have been sold, donated, or discarded by their original owner. This definition includes used electronics which are destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling or disposal.

How and why is e-waste hazardous?

If treated properly, electronic waste is a valuable source for secondary raw materials. However, if not treated properly, it is a major source of toxins and carcinogens. Toxic substances in electronic waste may include lead, mercury, and cadmium. Carcinogenic substances in electronic waste may include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Up to thirty-eight separate chemical elements are incorporated into electronic waste items. The un-sustainability of discarding electronics and computer technology is another reason for the need to recycle – or perhaps more practically, reuse – electronic waste. Guiyu in the Shantou region of China, and Delhi and Bangalore in India, all have electronic waste processing areas. Uncontrolled burning, disassembly, and disposal are causing environmental and health problems, including occupational safety and health effects among those directly involved, due to the methods of processing the waste.