India’s first government-run e-waste recycling plant

Bengaluru, India’s technological hub, produces an estimated one lakh tonnes of electronic garbage per year, and the Centre promised a state-of-the-art e-waste recycling centre for the city. The e-waste recycling plant in India is built by India’s Chemicals and Fertilisers Ministry, which claims it is the country’s first of its kind in the public sector.

The facility is established by the Central Organisation of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), a ministry-run research institute. Ananth Kumar, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, promised that the programme would be duplicated in other locations. In the Lok Sabha, he represents Bengaluru South.

Why set up an e-waste recycling plant in India?

What happens to our old smartphones and computers, as well as spent batteries, light bulbs, and other household items? We occasionally swap in the old for the new. Many shops just divert our old e-Waste into the informal market, where it eventually ends up in landfills. Poisonous substances such as mercury and cadmium leach into the soil and groundwater from here. Foreign countries dump their rubbish in underdeveloped countries unlawfully. The “e-waste (management and handling) rules-2011” are now in effect to control such toxics. It places the responsibility for e-waste disposal on the manufacturers of such items.

• Bengaluru, which exports nearly a third of India’s software and is home to over 7,000 startups, is the country’s third-largest producer of e-waste. The CIPET claims to have developed technology for recycling e-waste plastics into high-value goods for a variety of uses, including electrical and electronic components and structural composites
• India was placed among the top five nations in terms of e-waste output in a 2016 survey by ASSOCHAM and KPMG, with an estimated 1.85 million tonnes created yearly. Computers accounted for 70% of overall e-waste, while telecom equipment accounted for 12%, according to the e-waste recycling plant project report. Bengaluru came in third place, after Mumbai and Delhi, with roughly 92,000 tonnes of e-waste produced each year
• According to a ministerial statement, the initiative will boost the entrepreneurial potential for strategic use of high-performance plastics and metal scrap
• The setup will develop eco-friendly methods for handling and processing e-waste in a systematic manner
• India creates roughly 18 lakh tonnes of e-waste each year, which is increasing at a pace of 30% per year. The 153 licensed recyclers and dismantlers buy around 5% of it, while the remainder is scooped up by the unorganised sector, which extracts whatever value it can and dumps significant portions of it in landfills
• The All India e-Waste Recyclers’ Association, located in Bengaluru, recently gathered over 180 e-waste recyclers from throughout the country. The organisation was founded with the goal of streamlining the country’s e-waste recycling industry

How does it work?

• E trash board of circuit of recycling facility is appropriate for recovering nonferrous metals such as copper, silver, gold, palladium, rhodium, and platinum from the boards of a circuit, copper cladding plates, PCBs, and mobile phone boards. The whole system physically crushes the board of the circuit to separate the resin and copper
• Simultaneously, pulse dust removal equipment is installed on the equipment to efficiently eliminate dust created during the manufacturing process. The following usage of an electrostatic sorting machine of high-voltage improves the fineness and efficiency of sorting, effectively controls nonferrous metal loss, and increases the rate of sorting metal to 98 per cent
• The first machine of breaking is a biaxial shredding machine, while the second uses a hammer pulveriser and the third uses a high-speed turbine pulveriser. The metal is then separated by the resin using electrostatic separation and wind. To effectively tackle the problem of pollution of dust in the manufacturing process, a pulse dust removal device is introduced following the process of wind separation

How does it affect the people around?

• Many toxic compounds included in e-waste have been shown to be exceedingly detrimental to human health and the environment, and e-waste is frequently disposed of under less than optimal safety conditions. Because the majority of e-waste is unlawfully handled by people who are not part of a formalised system, they frequently use unregulated and often risky recycling procedures that can have substantial health repercussions
• Pregnant women, children, and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the health dangers associated with e-waste. 400,000-500,000 kid labourers between the ages of 10 and 15 are projected to be engaging in e-waste recycling operations across India. Hazardous chemical absorption can have a severe impact on a child’s development and result in lasting harm

What is the initiative?

• The build-up of abandoned or damaged gadgets is reduced
• Preventing e-waste from being disposed of in landfills
• Aims to prohibit backyard recyclers from being processed in an unsanitary manner
• No to dumping e-waste into bodies of water, which causes pollution
• Bengaluru’s electronic trash recycling programme attempts to reduce air pollution caused by burning electronic garbage
• Guarantees that harmful metallic elements such as lead and mercury are not released into the environment, endangering the fertility of the soil
• The ultimate objective is a greener planet and a more civilised society

Challenges faced by the e-waste recycling plant

The most difficult aspect of the e-waste industry is getting the garbage from the consumer to the recycler. Recyclers anticipate rubbish to be delivered to their doorsteps, but customers instead pass it over to waste collectors. E-waste must be recycled properly and in accordance with environmental regulations.

Conclusion

The recycling centre will be established in the next four months by the Central Organisation of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), a government-funded research institute. Ananth Kumar, Bengaluru’s minister of chemicals and fertilisers, has stated that this would be repeated across the country. Bengaluru is the third-largest producer of e-waste in India. According to the CIPET, e-waste recycling technology has been created, and garbage will be turned into value-added goods for various purposes. The concept would encourage businesses to use high-performance plastics and metal scrap in smart ways. The setup will develop eco-friendly methods for handling and processing e-waste in a systematic manner.