E-waste disposal

Current practices

·         Three points as potential source of e-waste

1)       Foreign imports

2)       Indian SME’s (big firms who work on contractual basis as well)

3)       Consumer (direct sourcing or through junk-traders)

·         Usage of unorganized junk-trade channel

o    Consumers give the e-junk to the lorry/manual cart junk carrier

o    The junk carrier sells it to the local junk trader

o    Local junk trader dismantles the e-junk to separate it into following components

1.        Metal parts – to be traded with a scrap metal dealer

2.        Plastic frame – to be sold to a junk plastic dealer

3.        Electronic circuit boards/capacitors/transformers, etc

Reused to the fullest extent by the junk-trader

·         Components if working, are sold to the repair shop

·         If not working, thrown/sold to higher level junk-trader

·         Higher level junk traders burn the board away and extracts the metal and sell it further

o    Everything is sold in kgs.

Through this project, we intend to create a portal for recycling e-waste where people can come and sell the collected waste. This will then create a new business of recycling which will be more formidable and profitable to everyone in the system.

Our Proposed plan – focus on recycling electronic components preferably

(We shall put the waste metal and plastic components on their appropriate recycle/reuse channel)

o    Target the foreign imports market and the consumer market, if need be, even Indian SME’s and big contractual firms

o    Source the e-waste from junk-traders (those who have the completely non-reusable parts, sourced/filtered from the consumers)

o    Alternatively, the retail sellers of such electronic goods can be provided with a drop box (specifically in case of a mobile phone or such smaller gadgets), and each consumer can be compensated as per a manual, by the retailer, on our behalf

o    Aggregate such components at city level, ship it through rail freight to a centralized location (preferably located in Silvasa) and process them to separate all components

o    Utilize the existing, unorganized junk-trade channel to the maximum extent, at all such points where-after junk does not have any reuse value (need to identify all such points)

Siddharth Somani

Anil K