E-Waste in India

Electronic waste recycling and disposal is one of the fastest growing green sectors in India, with a massive potential for growth. Entrepreneurs looking to enter this sector face a secular growing industry for a long time given the exponential rate of electronic waste in the country. Not only is India generating huge amounts of E-waste, thousands of tons of electronic waste are being imported into the country from the developed nations. Most of this e-waste is manually recycled with huge amounts of inefficiency and also can lead to safety issues. There was even a radioactive incident which led to the death of 2 people. Scientific recycling and disposal is the need of the hour, as per capital electronics consumption in India grows at a rapid pace. India still consumes less than 1/10th of electronics compared to the other developed nations. With the launch of extremely cheap tablets and smartphones, large numbers of Indians are joining the digital economy. This will grow as per capita incomes in India rises and people buy more devices. The Indian governments are also pushing the increase in electronic consumption by giving free laptops and tablets to students.

Over 4000 tons of e-waste are being generated in India annually and though India has a number of laws in place/ proposed, most e-waste goes untreated. There are already some e-waste companies who are aggressively expanding but there is a lot of space for other entrepreneurs to get in. See our earlier list of e-waste companies in India and other e-waste industry articles.

Overview of e-waste related information