E-WASTE: A GROWING PROBLEM

Little has changed over the years in the narrow bylanes of Seelampur in the national capital, India’s largest unorganised e-waste recycling hub, as hundreds of establishments, big and small, salvage computer peripherals, laptops, mobile phones and other electronic waste in the most unscientific way. Government regulations on e-waste management have had little impact here.

If Seelampur represents how India has decided to handle one of modernity’s biggest problems — e-waste — things are hardly better in other parts of the country. India is now officially the world’s third-biggest e-waste generator, producing over 3.23 million metric tonnes of e-waste per year, behind the US and China. While hardly anything ends up in a landfill, the big worry is that 95 per cent of e-waste still continues to be handled by the informal sector.