CSR: Modification To E-Waste Management Rules
Recently, the E-waste Management Rule was amended. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) have simplified targets for electronics makers to collect e-waste depending on their yearly sales. As per the government rules notified late last March but effective October 2017, the life of a smartphone has been determined as five years, while that of a feature phone at seven years.
Now the e-waste collection targets of 30% from 2017-18, have been reduced to 10% with an incremental rise of 10% every year. For the first time, new producers have also been brought under the new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regime wherein the target has been set 5% onwards of total sales done in 2016-2017 to recovery of e-waste in 2018-19.
“The rules will be easier to comply for newer players as per the definition of end of life of the product set by the ministry, since they have to meet a lower target than established players. This may skew the competition slightly, given that if all companies were to set up e-waste management chains on their own, the costs could rise significantly. However, if the companies were to work with a third-party provider, the cost of compliance would be negligible, not more than 1-2% of the value of a phone, which can be easily absorbed by the companies without passing it to the consumers,” says Radhika Kalia, Managing Director, RLG India.
Reverse Logistics Group (RLG) India, provides for professional collection, recycling & disposal of electronic products. They manage and operate the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) “Clean India Electronics Recycling Platform” (CIERP) to provide producers a sustainable, reliable and efficient option to comply with their extended producer obligations as prescribed in the CPCB’s Implementation Guidelines for E-waste (Management) Rules.
After 2023, the target has been fixed at 70% of the quantity of waste generation – it means electronic goods manufacturing companies will have to collect and channel 70% of e-waste from consumers to authorised dismantlers and recyclers.
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