Karnataka - Bangalore   

City firm plans to set up plant to recycle e-waste

By K. Satyamurty

BANGALORE, APRIL 3. The nation's IT capital is also known to generate the largest amount of "e-waste."

Computer monitors, worn out keyboards, mouses, and mouse pads, used CDs, and floppies are discarded every year in large numbers.

With more than 1,100 IT companies in and around Bangalore, the city generates an estimated 6,000 tonnes of e-waste every year.

Some of this gets burnt and others find their way into landfills around the city. All this can be a potential danger to the environment, including groundwater sources.

If all goes according to plan, Bangalore will soon have India's first automated plant to recycle this electronic waste.

The manual recycling and waste disposal followed currently is considered hazardous. Waste such as used batteries or discarded cell phones can induce harmful chemicals into the air and water.

Now, a city-based company, E-Parishara, has offered to construct and develop a scientifically managed recycling plant with support from an NGO with environmental concerns, Agastya.

Planned to come up as a pilot plant at Dobbespet, 50 km. from the city on Tumkur Road, it can treat about one tonne of e-waste every day. There will be a separate effluent treatment plant as well.

E-Parishara already operates a laboratory scale recycling plant that can handle about 100 kg. of e-waste daily and has the expertise to eventually build and operate a plant with a capacity of up to 10 tonnes, the company says.

Instead of incinerating the waste (which some companies do, releasing the hazardous chemicals into the air), the model plant is designed to break them up into recyclable components.

There has been serious concern among environmentalists about the e-waste which gets imported by scrap merchants and partially recycled.

The gravity of the locally generated e-waste is just beginning to be noticed. The Central Pollution Control Board is trying to gauge the severity of the problem by setting up a task force comprising representatives from the IT industry, government bodies, and NGOs.

The task force is expected to conduct a rapid survey covering Bangalore, Chennai, and Kolkata over the next six months.

This would be a prelude to a nation-wide action plan to tackle the problem of e-waste, industry sources said.

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