Thursday, July 03, 2014: In a shocking report by NGO Toxic Links, many companies have failed in fulfilling their basic duty under EPR(Extended Producer Responsibility) which was defined under the e-waste management in 2011. The report which titles as “time to reboot” shames 50 world renowned electronic brands for not having collection centres for their e-waste.
The report further exposes that the state pollution control boards are neither functioning properly nor taking any step to push this environmental agenda. They lack inventory of e-waste management and fail to ensure storage facility also. Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal produced 4268.42 Million Tonne and 34,124 Million Tonne e-waste in 2011-12. Further assessing the situation, out of these 50 companies, 16 failed miserably after getting zero points in the four basic categories for which they were assessed. Only 7 brands which includes Canon India, Intex Technologies, Nokia, Lenovo, Onida, Panasonic and Sansui India were in “good” category of the given report. This step comes after filing of RTI query by Toxic Links which asked PCB regarding e-waste management. They were shocked by the stats which said that only 7 out of 28 states and 7 Union Territories have made inventories of e-waste management. Most of the states even lack the basic infrastructure to deal with such waste.
Out of 50, 46 have less than 100 collection points across India. “The apprehension arising is not of volumes alone, but also of the nature of toxicity associated. E-waste contains a variety of toxic chemicals, metals and materials such as mercury, lead and brominated flame retardants, known to cause major health and environmental damage,” Toxics Links was quoted to as saying in a statement.
