Businesses and organisations around the world are heavily reliant on electronics for day-to-day activities, requiring them to have fast, latest and new-age technology. With growing innovations in technology, older equipment, and other electrical and electronic waste is often discarded through improper channels, resulting in widespread dumping in landfills. What is the solution? Recycle your e-waste
In 2019, a startling 53.6 Million tons (Mt) of e-waste was generated amounting to nearly 7.6kg of e-waste per person on earth, with a projected increase to 74 Mt by 2030. There is a growing need to create awareness and set-up robust channels for the disposal of electronic waste/e-waste at the end of their useful life. Recykal aims to establish this through a digital platform that provides every stakeholder in the system an accessible disposable method that is transparent and traceable.
What is E-waste?
E-waste or Electronic waste or WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), refers to any discarded and disposed of electronic equipment.
E-waste can be broadly categorized into:
White Goods – Large household appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines?
Grey Goods – goods built on information technology and telecommunications such as laptops, computers
Brown Goods – Consumer goods such as cameras, and televisions
Hazards of e-waste
What lies inside of the plastic or metal casing is often overlooked by users, which when improperly disposed has health and environmental hazards. E-waste constitutes up to 51% iron or steel, followed by 21% plastic, 13% non-ferrous metals, and others.
Use of metals such as:
- Mercury
- Beryllium
- Lead
- Cadmium
- Arsenic
- Brominated flame retardants
And others are hazardous metals, which when mishandled could cause severe health issues, along with environmental degradation causing contamination of land, soil, water, and the atmosphere leading to high pollution.
This chemical waste from your disposed electronics tends to react with water and moisture, resulting in a chemical waste that pollutes the environment.
If e-waste is not recycled, it either ends up in landfills or reaches unregulated informal sectors where safe and standard recycling procedures are not followed, thereby creating more pollution of waste.
Water sources and soils in and around the landfills have been found to have toxic traces of the metals found in e-waste, raising an alarm for the possibility of these toxicants reaching the food web.
In India, less than 20% of the e-waste generated is being formally recycled, as a result, the untreated e-waste reaches the landfills, causing the leaching of toxic chemicals into the environment.
Status of E-waste in India:
India generates 3 Mt of e-waste annually, which is predicted to increase with the pandemic causing higher usage of electronics.
With rapid economic and population growth, India is one of the top five countries in e-waste generation (falling behind China, the USA & Japan), with an average growth in waste generation rising to 25% per year.
In 2019, China and the USA generated 10.1 and 6.2 Mt respectively, followed by India at 3.1 Mt. However, the rates of recycling and collection are far poor in India compared to China and the USA.
The top states in order of highest contribution to e-waste include Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab.
The city-wise ranking of the largest e-waste generators is Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat, and Nagpur.
According to CPCB, there are a total of 312 authorised e-waste recyclers and aggregators with a total capacity of 0.78 Million MTPA (Metric Tonne Per Annum). However, as of 2016, only 3000 tonnes were documented as recycled, highlighting a key gap in linking the waste generator to the recyclers in the system.
Recykal aims to establish this channel of communication and provide a wide range of networks for businesses to connect with e-waste recyclers and e-waste recycling companies.
What can you do?
The answer is simple “Recycle your e-waste”. This not just saves resources but greatly reduces the impact on the environment.
Hazards of E-waste to humans and the environment highlight the need for businesses to make simple changes in their management which extends its useful life
- Making informed purchases
- Repairing or Upgrading the Electronics
- Selling, Swapping or Donating
However, often e-waste generated despite the above actions still needs to be managed, for which e-waste recycling is essential, which begins by consciously disposing of the waste generated by your business.
Electronic Recycling Solutions for Your Business
E-waste recycling is carried out by both the formal and informal sector, with the latter recycling a larger fraction.
Recycling through the formal sector is low owing to the lack of a proper channel/framework of disposal and accessibility.
As stated above, Recykal aims to create a robust network which links your business with the relevant recycler/aggregator through our online-based waste management network.
How can you do it? How to Recycle your E-Waste
Prior to implementing or establishing a recycling framework for your business, there is a need to understand the legislation and its relevant regulations and guidelines.
The E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016, layout guidelines for businesses of which the following key points help in safe and efficient e-waste disposal:
- Responsibility of Collection, Channelization, and Disposal of e-waste lies with the waste producer
- Implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Framework
- E-waste producers can tie up with Producer Responsibility Organisations (PRO) to dispose of their waste
- Creating awareness
- Documentation of e-waste disposed
For large-scale organisations, there is a need for an easily accessible and efficient system of e-waste management.
Recykal – a digital waste ecosystem that provides the required solutions for e-waste management, with transparency, traceability, and easy accessibility.
The guidelines and regulations listed in the E-waste (Management) Rules, 2016, can be fulfilled using our web-based platform.
Recykal Consumer app – UZED links consumers to relevant Recykal points, with easy pick-up and drop-off services by registered transport partners
Recykal Business App enables material channelization from your business to Recykal points easy pick-up and drop-off services by registered transport partners
The waste from Recykal points is transported to relevant recyclers and aggregators for further processing.
Recykal Marketplace bridges the gap between recyclers and manufacturers in buying/selling the recyclables for further use.
Each transaction is documented and is easily traceable giving your business an easy and transparent disposal framework
With growing e-waste, there is an urgent need for fulfilling your EPR requirements, which are often tedious and challenging.
EPRLoop – a SaaS-based solution that helps in digital exchange for businesses to find and transact with PRO’s and Recyclers for EPR fulfilments
- Ease of planning your targets
- Managing your fulfillment partners
- Online documentation
- Tracking your progress
And so much more, all on one accessible, transparent and traceable platform
Incentives of e-waste recycling:
Incentives from e-waste recycling are not limited to just businesses but extend to all the stakeholders in the system along with environmental and economic benefits.
- It protects the environment from harmful chemicals and metals
- Reduces business costs as recycling gives non-tangible dividends by reducing the future costs of waste remediation
- Supports resource recovery – metals and plastic in e-waste can be extracted and recycled respectively, which greatly reduce the costs of raw materials, fossil fuels, and water
- Projects your business as a responsible and sustainable-conscious entity
- Conscious disposal of your e-waste is a smart, practical, and efficient way of handling waste.
Recykal and e-waste solutions:
As stated above, Recykal is committed to providing your business with efficient and transparent services ranging from EPR fulfillment to e-waste disposal, waste management awareness creation, and more.
With a holistic, collaborative, and comprehensive approach, we assure our network of PROs, recyclers, aggregators, DRCCs and clients will create the required channel of waste management for your business.
We strongly believe a robust channel of waste disposal is the way forward in addressing the growing issues of e-waste management.
Head over to our website to know more about the services we offer or book a demo with us to know more.
Be a part of our revolution of digitising waste management in India, through our disrupting technological innovations, in creating a circular and sustainable economy.
