Why India’s e-waste system needs change

According to the Global e-waste monitor 2020, 53.6 million tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated globally in 2019, of which Asia was the largest contributor. The report found China to be the world’s top e-waste producer having generated 10.1 Mt of e-waste in 2019. The rising e-waste hills are no alien to the Indian sub-continent either. Not surprisingly, India is the third biggest contributor with 3.2 million tonnes. The monitor also highlights that albeit the high generation numbers, China seems to be faring much better than Indian terms of collection and recycling of e-waste.

With the accelerating global expansion of the electric vehicles sector, the question of recycling e-waste batteries will soon assume gargantuan proportions in the waste management systems of different countries, including India and China. While both these countries boast of huge populations with increasing electronics consumption as well as a widespread informal e-waste processing sector, the management of rising e-waste differs. India’s transition from a linear to a circular economic model prerequisites an urgent need to remove existing bottlenecks and evolve the domestic waste management system. While the replication of the Chinese format is not the objective, the idea is to adopt a different perspective of policy making and enforcement of legislations to promote cross country learning for a healthy exchange of strategies and models in order to understand the applicabilityas well as the anomalies in the different national, socio-cultural and policy contexts.

The informal sector

China has a robust policy structure in place, whereby their informal sector coexists alongside the advanced formal recycling system. Following an incentive based mechanism, in 2012 China had started the implementation of the e-waste fund subsidy policy wherein a ‘advance disposal fee’ is placed on electrical product manufacturers to subsidize e-waste recycling and treatment enterprises. The collected fees is placed in the fund and then allocated to licensed recyclers to cover costs related to the collection and treatment of e-waste. This aided the dismantling of issues concerning environment protection and resource utilisation, under the extended producer responsibility (EPR) principle, and played a key role in the development of the e-waste treatment industry, effectively improving the recycling and resource utilization of e-waste. Such policy measures and stricter controls laid out with incentives for participants in the e-waste chain has helped to not only improve efficiency but has also contributed towards the decline of the informal sector in the country.

On the other hand, while India can boast of being the only country in Southern Asia to have a specific e-waste legislation in place since 2011, the e-waste recycling system has suffered long due to gaps in policy structure. The Indian e-waste landscape is still plagued with ambitious collection targets but ineffective implementation results. With the presence of 312 authorised formal recycling facilities that have a treatment capacity of approximately 800 kilo tonnes (kt) of waste annually, and 31 authorised producer responsibility organizations (PROs) providing compliance services, the circuit is still run predominantly by the informal sector. While EPR did prove to be an efficient strategy to garner greater seriousness among various stakeholders to comply with regulations, the lack of incentives has proven to be a deterrent. The formal sector struggles with high costs and high collection targets.Further, private players, like those operating through PROs observe a limited role due to the low reliability factor of securing economies of scale in sourcing e-waste quantities in the formal sector.

Imported waste

China has moved much ahead from being infamous as the e-waste hub of the world due to inadequate management of the huge amount of domestic generation as well as imports of e-waste. In 2018, China banned the import of 24 grades of solid waste including e-waste, which was later extended to a ban on the import of all types of solid waste by the country in 2020. Rising e-waste quantities and lack of adequate processing abilities in the country led China to face environmental problems. The ban did have a positive impact, promoting an efficient e-waste management system. E-waste recovery and treatment companies upgraded their technology and the renewable resources industry were forced to upgrade to deal with the situation. As per the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment in 2019, due to e-waste regulations and expansion of facilities, significant growth in treatment capacity and quality was observed with more than 70 million e-waste units being dismantled annually.In case of India, while the import of e-waste is banned, the refurbishment and re-exportation of second-hand goods is allowed. However, the differentiation between e-waste and second-hand goods is not very clear, making it difficult to ensure the restriction on e-waste entry. As per a 2020 study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the average share of electrical equipment in total imports is 9.62%. The import of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has been increasing at the rate of 12.3% annually in the last six years, with 2019–20 witnessing a negative growth. The existence of a favourable policy in terms of an import ban while highlights that the foundations of a proper system have been laid, the ineffectual implementation describes the very reason of the need for a change.

In sum, it is clear that a simple command and control policy has not proven to be a solution. Learning from the Chinese experience, India should imply a complete ban on waste imports to prioritise domestic management before any ecological catastrophe hits us. Further,with the dominant presence of the informal sector, a focus on mandatory collection targets may not prove to be an efficient strategy to enhance producer responsibility. Picking up on the positive components of the ‘Chinese model’, perhaps exposing the e-waste sector in India to an incentive based mechanism can accelerate improvements. The current landscape lacks the presence of economic instruments that promote as well as support the collection and processing system. Involvement of financial incentives like a subsidy for producers to support collection and recycling processes, or for consumers to deposit e-waste at designated centres, or even direct funding of recyclers will help to reduce and perhaps remove the laidback attitude among different stakeholders groups of the waste management chain. Initiating a cross country learning program can help India to not just gain the knowledge to make concrete and impactful changes in its domestic management and focus on developing technologies, but perhaps someday it may also help the country to lead the recycling agenda internationally.

In case of India, while the import of e-waste is banned, the refurbishment and re-exportation of second-hand goods is allowed. However, the differentiation between e-waste and second-hand goods is not very clear, making it difficult to ensure the restriction on e-waste entry. As per a 2020 study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the average share of electrical equipment in total imports is 9.62%. The import of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has been increasing at the rate of 12.3% annually in the last six years, with 2019–20 witnessing a negative growth. The existence of a favourable policy in terms of an import ban while highlights that the foundations of a proper system have been laid, the ineffectual implementation describes the very reason of the need for a change.

In sum, it is clear that a simple command and control policy has not proven to be a solution. Learning from the Chinese experience, India should imply a complete ban on waste imports to prioritise domestic management before any ecological catastrophe hits us. Further,with the dominant presence of the informal sector, a focus on mandatory collection targets may not prove to be an efficient strategy to enhance producer responsibility. Picking up on the positive components of the ‘Chinese model’, perhaps exposing the e-waste sector in India to an incentive based mechanism can accelerate improvements. The current landscape lacks the presence of economic instruments that promote as well as support the collection and processing system. Involvement of financial incentives like a subsidy for producers to support collection and recycling processes, or for consumers to deposit e-waste at designated centres, or even direct funding of recyclers will help to reduce and perhaps remove the laidback attitude among different stakeholders groups of the waste management chain. Initiating a cross country learning program can help India to not just gain the knowledge to make concrete and impactful changes in its domestic management and focus on developing technologies, but perhaps someday it may also help the country to lead the recycling agenda internationally.

Views are personal. The author is a Research Associate at ICRIER.