By Diksha Gupta
With the industry pushing the government for the swift adoption of the draft e-waste management and handling rule, 2010, Attero Recycling, an end-to-end e-waste recycling company, has launched a mobile phone take-back service through its website www.atterobay.com, to encourage recycling of mobile phones.
Atterobay.com provides a green solution to those who are ignorant about how to dispose of their old cell phones in a responsible way. It also promises incentives to consumers for giving off their old phones.
At Atterobay.com you can sell your mobile for recycling. All you need to do is to key in some basic information. The value of your mobile phone will be evaluated by a software. If you like the deal offered by the website, go ahead and seal it, in exchange for the gift vouchers offered on the site.
“We don’t assess the cost of used mobile phones manually. We have designed software for the purpose, which calculates the cost of used mobile phones within no time, based on the information one has provided,” informs Rohan Gupta. Once you agree to the deal, a representative of the company will come to collect the phone from your place. The shipping is free, with certain terms and conditions applicable. Atterobay has tied up with several courier companies across India for this purpose.
According to recent statistics, India has more that 700 million mobile users. Given the fact that mobile phone handsets have a shelf life of 18 months, there are useless cell phones lying around in practically every second household. “This electronic waste can be harmful if kept for a long time. Moreover, selling them in the grey market is not a good practice. We invite such customers to Atterobay.com because this platform provides a healthy way to dispose of such e-waste,” says Rohan Gupta.
The company is targeting Tier I and II cities to begin with, and will eventually offer its services to Tier III cities as well. Attero Recycling has plans to launch a similar service for laptops as well.
Ignorance and the high cost of collecting e-waste is turning out to be a bane for India’s e-waste management companies. Rohan Gupta is, however, placing all his hopes on the draft e-waste rules becoming a law, to set a framework for e-waste management wherein the users pay for the ethical disposal of electronic goods.
In India, awareness about e-waste is still low and it is very expensive to reach the consumers directly. The awareness is so poor that only 1 per cent of the capacity of Attero’s e-waste management plant in Uttarakhand, which can recycle 36,000 tons, is utilised. This is despite the fact that the company is on a collection drive and has tied up with companies such as LG, Wipro, Tata Teleservices, KPMG, Marriott and Perot Systems to support its e-waste disposal systems.
