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Effective
electronic waste management and recycling process involving
formal and non-formal sectors
S. Chatterjee and Krishna Kumar
Department of Information Technology, Electronics Niketan,
6, C. G. O. Complex New Delhi-110 003, India.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
sandip@mit.gov.in.
Accepted 27 November, 2009. |
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Electronics waste is becoming a crisis for the society. Huge
accumulation of e-waste and their recycling through
primitive means for extraction of precious metals is real
concern in the developing countries as e-waste contains
hazardous materials. Recycling of e-waste through proper
technologies is, however, considered to be a profitable
business in developed countries due to the presence of
precious metals (including gold, silver etc.) in printed
circuit boards (PCBs). The present recycling cost is,
however, not viable and thereby huge volume of e-waste is
being exported to the developing countries like India,
China, Brazil etc., where manpower is in-expensive and
enforcement of environmental laws is not so stringent. This
article is proposing an outsourcing model where equal
participation of the formal and non-formal sector is ensured
to make the e-waste management business a profitable one.
The main motivation for non-formal operators is to extract
precious metals (gold, silver) from printed circuit board
(PCB) using unscientific and unhygienic methods, which are
harmful to the workers and the environment. This practice
needs to be discouraged by providing appropriate price to
the non-formal operators for the materials they collected.
In the proposed approach, non-formal operators will
concentrate on collection, disassembly, segregation of
e-waste, whereas, formal sector will concentrate on
processing the PCBs to extract precious metals. The 95-97%
of the e-waste by weight contains metal, glass and plastics,
which can easily be dissembled and segregated manually
without damaging environment; whereas, the rest 3-5% by
weight of e-waste actually consists of PCBs/connectors, need
environmentally friendly recycling techniques to manage. The
major segregated materials from e-waste, including metals,
glass and plastic parts can be recycled through the
conventional recycling practices used in municipality waste
management by organized smelters and re-processors. The
segregated PCB and connectors will be pulverized by
professional agency to make homogenous powder and assessment
of assay content of the powder will be done to know the
worth of the PCBs. Once the right price is decided,
non-formal sector can sell the PCBs to the formal recyclers
for further process. This approach will allow the formal
recyclers to concentrate only on processing PCBs, which
requires technologies, specialized skills and expertise.
The said approach will eradicate the unhygienic practice
prevailing in non-formal units in developing countries and
thereby will stop polluting environment, soil, water, and
will also protect the health of the worker. Once the
outsourced model is established, the recycling of e-waste
business will again be viable. It will also ensure the
higher yield of metal recovery from e-waste as well as
minimum landfill.
Key words:
Management, India, e-waste, PCBs. |
