Study of reverse supply chain practices of it hardware & electronic goods: e?waste management in India

Abstract

The Contemporary Concerns Study aims to study the changing electronic industry scenario in India, and how dramatic its growth has been over the last few years. Though this sets the tone of the report, our main focus was on the exponential growth of the waste generated with the growth in this industry. We have analysed the various stakeholders that are currently playing their roles of channelizing the waste in a proper way. We analyse in terms of the competitive forces in play, the advantages they had and the limitations they faced, and how these situations have led to necessitating better management overall. We have analyzed the growing Indian Electronic Industry along with the forecast. Our major focus has been on the desktop and related IT accessories and the mobile phones. The spiralling digital revolution initiated in 1980 has become a matter of concern for an emerging country like India where consumption and disposal of electronic gadgets is at an all time high. India currently generates 400,000 tonnes of e?Waste annually out of which 70% come from government and business houses. Mumbai currently leads with 19,000 tonnes of waste generation. Mobile waste generation has been estimated to be around 1655 tonnes which is a small figure when compared to total e?Waste generation but it is expected to boom since mobile growth has been phenomenal over the last few years. Next we looked at the environmental aspects of the waste and the related toxic substances that are generated in e?Waste management. The viable business opportunity arising out of e?Waste management is the extraction of precious metals like gold, silver etc from the various components of desktop PCs or mobiles. Statistics suggests that nearly 3% of the total gold consumption occurs by the electronic industry. We have tried to estimate the ratio by weights of the various components in a typical desktop PC. One of the most important observations of the study was the study of the legal environment currently available in India. Currently it is highly underdeveloped and one of the most ignored areas that are likely to become extremely important in the coming years. There is no specific statute that guides the e?Waste management in the current Indian context. Though there are certain Hazardous Waste Rules defined under the Environment Protection Act, majority of the waste management happens under the various State Pollution Control