NEW DELHI: 24TH FEBRUARY 2022/HE Times/Pragya Vaibhav
he Kejriwal Government will lead the country in combating e-waste. The Delhi Cabinet under the leadership of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today approved setting up of India’s first e-waste eco park. Talking about the development, Dy CM Manish Sisodia stated — E-waste generation is going up with the increased use of technology, our eco-park will reduce pollution across the capital.
The Kejriwal Government’s eco-park will have an authorised refurbishing market as a secondary product sale market for electronic goods, batteries, chargers, laptops, PC and mobiles. Collection centres across 12 zones will be set up to channelize e-waste. Eco-park will provide infrastructure, training and tools to the operators in the informal sector to groom them as formal recyclers.
Sisodia said, “As the usage of technology is rapidly increasing every day, the amount of E-waste generation has also gone up. But it is not being handled scientifically and safely, which results in many life threatening incidents like fire breakouts and impacts the health of capital residents and waste handlers.
Currently Delhi releases about 2,00,000 tonnes of e-waste per year and it is mainly handled and recycled by informal recyclers. But at this eco-park recycling, refurbishing, and dismantling of waste will be done in a scientific and environmentally safe manner”.
How will the e-waste Eco-Park work?
Being an integrated facility, this e-waste Eco-Park will accommodate various handlers in the ecosystem such as e-waste refurbishers, dismantlers, recyclers, plastic waste processors and others in the same premises. The e-waste eco-park will have all types of processing and recycling units of the materials recovered from e-waste sites so that materials could be extracted for future production. This facility will include dismantling, segregation, refurbishing, material wise storage, testing, plastic recycling and precious metal extraction facilities especially from Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) through high-end technologies.
Collection centres across 12 zones to bolster the Eco-park
Delhi’s e-waste eco-park will provide integrated and environmentally safe disposal of e-waste, through innovative technologies, which will help reduce the pollution and adverse impact on environment and health of capital residents. Collection centres across 12 zones will be set up to channelize e-waste generated, which will be dismantled, segregated, refurbished, recycled and tested at the eco-park premises.
Activities at E-waste Eco-Park
The activities in the E-waste eco-park will be targeted towards the small and medium scale enterprises clusters involved in e-waste recycling. They will include refurbishment, disassembly, segregation, stocking of segregated materials (metals, plastics, glass, and components. The eco-park will have an authorised refurbishing market as a secondary product sale market for electronic goods, batteries, chargers, laptops, PC and mobiles.
The E-waste Eco-park shall engage informal operators carrying out these activities for a long time and having sufficient knowledge base in the collection network. Cooperation with the informal sector will help to ensure availability of e-waste for processing in the formal sector and will contribute to making the formal units economically viable.
There shall be end-to-end processing of E-waste and zero landfill shall be ensured. Rare earth metals and precious metals like copper, silver, gold, aluminium and reusable plastic extracted in the park will be transferred to the mainstream production line. E-waste Eco park shall have rate contracts, in consultation with producers, retails for buy back of used electronic goods and rates of electronic components for selling to a refurbisher.
Benefits of E-waste Eco Park
The Eco-park will provide infrastructure, training and tools to the operators in the informal sector to groom them as formal recyclers. Eco-park will help reduce the adverse impact on the environment and health of capital residents and waste handlers. It will provide a system for channelization of e-waste for environmentally sound recycling in the organised sector. Eco-parks will allow increased efficiency and technical innovation. It will raise awareness among the informal sector concerning e-waste recycling.
