Goa fails to cash in on e-waste Published on Friday, 30 August 2013 12:05 There is significant consumption of expensive metals such as palladium, gold, platinum and copper in electronic-used products, which are thrown away as old televisions, telephones, computers and laptops. This e-waste reaches China, which cashes in on it. Currently in India, the days of 100 per cent recycling is as good as dead, but there could be ways for new entrepreneurs to explore to reclaim precious materials, said Goa State Pollution Control Board chairman Jose M Noronha. The E-waste (Management and Handling) Rule, 2011 came into effect in May, 2012 to deal with the rising e-waste. Goa generates over 1000 tonne of e-waste every year, of which around 400 tonne comprises personal computers, and the balance is refrigerator, washing machines, handset and anything that is powered by electronics. “To segregate the precious metals from the e-waste we should think of developing `urban mining’,” said industrialist Haresh Melwani. Although each component contains only a fraction of a gram of the precious metal in a single electronic product, the sheer volume of e-waste can reap huge benefits like it is done in China, he observed. ‘Urban mining’ is the process of reclaiming resources from all this electronic waste. It is increasing the recycling value of this e-waste. There are no authorised recycling unit in Goa, because of which most of Goa’s e-waste is finding its way to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, which in turn export it to China. Nevertheless Centre for Incubation and Business Acceleration – the only incubator academy in Goa – is thinking on the lines of mining the e-waste before discarding it out of the state. Overseas scientists are developing what they call ‘urban mining’. Our mining industry may have the answer for problem of e-waste, Noronha, CIBA chief, said. It is learnt that most electronic waste is sent off to be shredded and shipped to China for processing. It means Goa is losing out on precious metals: for example one tonne of old mobile phones can contain well over 100 kilograms of copper, three kilograms of silver and 200 grams of gold. “The ‘waste material concentration’ of these metals is relatively high and it may be much higher than the normal concentration from real ore,” Melwani said. Normally after five years of usage of any ICT equipment an electronic product is declared obsolete, said e-waste expert Nijanand Vasta. Vasta said there is a buyback scheme for electronic products in Goa. According to that scheme, the actual hardware vendor quotes for buyback along with the purchase cost for hardware. All government departments, including government corporations, go for new procurements as a replacement to the obsolete hardware under the buyback scheme. The vendor takes responsibility for collecting the obsolete hardware (e-waste). Under the buyback scheme old computers are taken away as e-waste, making it easy for the government departments to dispose of e-waste. [NT]