NEWS

Come Tuesday, you will not be allowed to chuck your old phones, printer cartridges and television sets in municipal bins.

This new rule, however, may put any law-abiding citizen in a fix because the designated centres, where they are actually meant to dispose of the e-waste, have not come up in most cities.

Ravi Aggarwal of NGO Toxic Link said effective implementation of the rules looked very unlikely in light of the present circumstances.
“We don’t know where the e-waste is to be disposed. Neither companies nor the government have done anything in this regard, not even in big cities such as Delhi,� he said.

Under the new rules, each manufacturer is required to notify a city-wise list of collection agents within a year.

Though companies like Nokia and Samsung claimed to have gained a headstart by adhering strictly to e-recycling norms, many state pollution boards have not been able to notify the recycling agents to whom the companies are required to sell the e-waste. Also, many states have failed to notify sites for recycling E-waste, and ones like Seelampur in East Delhi and Dharavi slums in Mumbai are totally unregulated.