How To Make E-Waste Recycling Commercially Viable, Government Looks At Options

New Delhi: The government is exploring the possibility of setting up an eco-park under public-private partnership mode to make research and development in e-waste recycling commercially viable, the environment ministry has told a parliamentary panel.

The ministry said this to the Committee of Subordinate Legislation 2016-17 in its 23rd report on action taken by the government on the recommendations contained in the 15th report of the committee on e-waste management.

“Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has informed that in order to make the e-waste recycling R&D processes commercially viable, effort would be made to explore the possibility to set up eco-park under PPP by providing infrastructure, training tools etc,” the environment ministry has said.

It said such eco-park could provide a system for channelisation of e-waste for environmentally sound recycling in the organised sector by bringing together formal and informal sector.

The activities of the park could be built upon the existing indigenous technologies for printed circuit board recycling developed by MeitY in various research endeavours, it said.

The ministry said it already has a scheme named ‘creation of management structure for hazardous substances’ which has provision for granting central and state subsidy to the e-waste recycling units.

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The panel chaired by Dilipkumar Mansukhlal Gandhi had recommended that the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), responsible for research and development in the e-waste management technology, should make concerted efforts in cooperation with environment ministry to financially assist companies making foray into e-waste recycling.

The committee is also of the considered view that the DeitY should go full throttle in exploiting the talent across the country and across institutions of scientific excellence to promote research in the field of e-waste management, it had recommended.

The committee had noted that R&D in technology pertaining to management of e-waste in an environment friendly manner falls within the domain of the DeitY, which has initiated a number of R&D projects at various national institutions in India. The committee had expressed satisfaction at such initiatives and said that they would go a long way in helping local companies to utilise these indigenous technologies which are less expensive alternatives to the imported technologies.

The committee is, however at the same time worried that the various e-waste recycling R&D processes developed under DeitY have not so far become commercially viable due to lack of financial assistance and also due to lack of interest by the industry, it had said in its recommendation.

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