from waste to resource: e-waste management practice in mandi

From waste to resource: E-wastemanagement practice in Mandi

Abstract

The electronics industry is the world's largestand fastest growing manufacturing industry inthe world and so is it's waste. E-waste refers toelectrical and electronic products nearing theend of their 'useful life'. With latest develop-ments in technology pushing through new e-products almost every month and a great in-flux of students and professionals in Mandi dueto the impact of the recently established IIT,it's expected that soon the e-waste generationwill skyrocket in the town. Against this back-drop the proposed project aims to understandthe e-waste disposal behavior of individuals aswell as the community as a whole, to build alow-cost prototype for material recovery frome-waste and to estimate the value of resourcesthat can be generated from e-waste.

Team Members:

Amit Kumar (B15403)Pradeep Kumar (B15326)Akash Marmat (B15304)Vijay Shankar Meena(B15340)Lokesh Tungariya (B15412)Rajanish Kumar Upadhyay(B15126)

Advisors:

Dr. Viswanath BalakrishnanDr. Ingrid ShockeyDr. Shyamasree DasguptaDr. Seth Tuler

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From waste to resource: E-waste management practice in Mandi

Introduction

E-waste has many synonyms and pseudonymsacross the world such as WEEE (Waste Electricaland Electronic Equipment), electronic waste or e-scrap. The most acceptable definition is WEEE.EEE(electrical and electronic equipment) is definedas ”any household or business item with circuitryor electrical components with power or battery sup-ply”. [Huisman, 2012]. E-Waste is a term used tocover items of all types of electrical and electronicequipment (EEE) and its parts that have been dis-carded by the owner as waste without the inten-tion of re-use.[Global e-waste Monitor 2017]. Ason record, 44.6 Million tonnes of e-waste was gen-erated in 2016 [GEM-2017] which averages out to6.1 kg per inhabitant. Of this India produces 2 Mil-lion tonnes [HT,2016], 70% of which is generated byten states of the country [Vats. C, Singh Santosh2014]. E-waste in India is growing at 30% annu-ally[HBL,2016] owing to the CAGR(CompoundedAnnual Growth Rate) of 27% of the electronic mar-ket.[Yourstory,2017].

All these trends and data project in terms ofcurrent wastes and the average growth rate of sec-tor producing the same, there’s a local diversitythat is left unaddressed in such analyses which isthe e↵ect of some local event of a major changein the landscape. One of such a↵airs is the open-ing of a prestigious institute such as an IIT in theregion viz. (IIT Mandi in Mandi). This has re-sulted in the flow of more tech-savvy individualsin the region and hence along with perennial ad-vancement in technology has boosted the marketfor electronic and electrical items. As little to nodata (both qualitative and quantitative) pertainingto Mandi’s electronic waste context is available, thisproject serves as a crucial launchpad of all such at-tempts to understand the e-waste disposal behaviorof individuals and the state’s attempt to deal withthe same.

A major roadblock for dealing with e-wasteis the lack of adequate infrastructure to managewastes safely. This leads to these wastes beingburied, burnt in the open air or dumped into sur-face water bodies[Nnorom et.al 2008] All this isextremely harmful to the environment and conse-quently human body. Therefore our project alsoaims at assessing and demonstrating a process de-velopment which aims at material segregation froman e-waste component. This is entailed in buildingup of a prototype which highlights the importantfeatures of this approach.

Almost 95% of e-waste is recyclable[Hossain et.al 2015] and has potentially recoverable materialsamounting to 55 billion euros[Statistia 2016]. Onaccount of such economic opportunities, we aim to

estimate the value of materials that can be recov-ered from the e-waste generated.

The study is proposed to be carried out in theIIT Campus and in Mandi town. The specific ob-jectives and plan of execution are as follows:

1. What is the e-waste disposal behavior of thecommunity residing inside IIT Mandi Cam-pus and in Mandi town?

2. What is the estimated volume of e-waste gen-erated today and what will be the projectedvolume for coming decades? [These two willbase on a structured random sample surveyat the household level]

3. Low cost prototype or process developmentto demonstrate e-waste recycling

4. What is the estimated value of recovered ma-terials in the process? [This will based onthe results obtained from material segrega-tion and the projected volume of di↵erenttypes of e-waste]

Background

Mandi is a largely rural district of HimachalPradesh with the central town rapidly urbanizing aslocal levels of education and income gradually riseas the town gains more significance in India’s edu-cational and tourism landscape. An estimated pop-ulation of 1088366 generates 342.35 TPD(tonnesper day) of solid wastes of which e-waste is con-sidered as an integral but small part.[Action Plan,municipal solid waste, HP, ] This treatment to e-waste projects a lack of awareness and thus con-cern for e-waste and its management in the region.The GSDP of Himachal Pradesh[Wikipedia 2017]is growing at 14.45% of which Shimla, Mandi andManali are major contributors. This means higherpurchasing power which in turn implies people buy-ing more electronic and electrical commodities. Inlight of this, we can ascertain that e-waste volumesare expected to grow exponentially in times to comein the region.

Sources of e-waste

As per [Hossain et. al 2015], some identifiedmajor sources of e-waste are:

1. Individuals and Businesses: As the usefulspan of electronic and electrical equipmenthas come down due to improved versions be-ing launched about every few months, cus-tomers are forced as well as lured to buy newproducts.

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2. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs):Generate e-waste when units coming o↵ theproduction line do not meet quality standardsand the run-o↵s of the manufacturing process.

Classification

In general electronic and electrical equipmenthave been classified as follows[Hossain et. al 2015]:

1. Large household appliances: These generatehigh volumes of e-wastes after a relativelylarger period of use. Examples include: Re-frigerator and washing machine.

2. IT and Telecom: These are equipment usedfor communication or related activities suchas education, research, etc. The rate of e-waste generation for them is closely boundto technological advancements. Examples arePCs and peripherals, large automated ma-chines.

3. Consumer equipment: These are appliancesother than those in the first category, whichare found in households and industries. Thee-waste generation period for these is moder-ately bound to the rate of technological ad-vancement.

E-waste Composition and their hazardousnature

The processes of dismantling and disposing ofelectronic waste in developing countries led to anumber of environmental impacts as illustrated inthe graphic. Liquid and atmospheric releases endup in bodies of water, groundwater, soil, and airand therefore in land and sea animals both domes-ticated and wild, in crops eaten by both animalsand human, and in drinking water.[Babu, 2016]E-waste contains a number of materials, many ofwhich are hazardous such as Mercury which causesbrain damage, lead which can result in instantdeath. Further hormonal imbalance and fetus mal-formation are also common in places where thereis a prolonged exposure to e-waste. The followingdiagram brings about some of the hazardous mate-rials in e-waste whereas the table following it liststheir health hazards.[Hossain et. al 2015]

Figure 1: Hazardous Materials found in e-waste.(Uddin, Jalal, 2012)

Figure 2: Diseases caused by e-waste(Uddin, Jalal,2012)

E-waste recycling and regulations

In developed countries, e-waste treatmentplants are coming up which deal with some of theire-waste. They dispose o↵ the rest of their e-wasteby exporting used goods to developing countriesin an attempt to bridge the so-called digital di-vide.[Nnorom, I.C., Osibanjo, O.,2008] These areused by refurbishing or repackaging with namessimilar to larger brands. In developing countriesper se there exists little to no infrastructure todeal with e-waste.[Nnorom, I.C., Osibanjo, O.,2008]Furthermore waste is misplaced wealth is very aptfor e-waste since it’s composition shows that its re-cycling can result in some gainful material recov-ery.[Uddin, Jalal, 2012] Apathy from local govern-ments means that these activities are mostly car-ried out by the informal sector which doesn’t fol-low any standardized practices and causes loads ofpollution. One such case in point which serves as

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a reminder of hazards of crude recycling of e-wasteis he Guiyu town in Chaozhou region, Southeast-ern Guangdong province of China[documentary:BAN, Greenpeace]. In this town primitive recyclingprocesses/techniques used include open burning ofplastics (to reduce waste volume), and copper wires(to salvage valuable metals, e.g. copper), strongacid leaching of printed wiring boards, PWBs (torecover precious metals) from which the waste acidwere discharged into nearby streams, and grillingof PWBs over honeycombcoal fires to melt solder(to allow collection of electronic components, e.g.diodes and resistors). Due to ground water pollu-tion, Guiyus drinking water has been delivered froma nearby town for over a decade now.[Wong et al.,2007; Liu et al., 2006;Roman and Puckett, 2002].There are also case reports of increasing respiratorytract infections, kidney stones, and the incidenceof these health problems are higher among the mi-grant workers [Hicks et al., 2005; Liu et al., 2006].Thus there’s a need to have regulations regardingrecycling of e-waste. Also crude methods shouldbe avoided. The e-waste management regulationsin India came into e↵ect from 1st day of October,2016. These include both the definition of e-wasteas well as the idea f EPR(Extended Producer Re-sponsibility), which tries to ingrain disposal andrecovery costs in the cost of the products the wasteoriginated from.[G.S.R. 338(E), March 2016]

Methodology

Given the complexity of our project, the sheersize of our goals and time constraints, we decidedto sub-divide our objectives into more qualified sub-tasks and performed them as meticulously as pos-sible.

Understanding the e-waste disposal behaviorof the community

This objective requires intensive interactionwith people and attempts to understand both theirincentives and deterrents which proliferate in theirbehavior to e-waste. We found the following sub-tasks to be rather very useful in getting this intopractice:

1. Assessing Local Perceptions and BehaviorsRegarding E-Waste production and manage-ment in Mandi:

(a) Mandi: For this aspect of the project weconducted household surveys. Our ini-tial motivation was to conduct a com-pletely random survey. We generateda random list of house-numbers whichwe had obtained through the 2017 elec-tion voter list and proceeded to conduct

the surveys door-to-door. This provedto be daunting and unaccomplishable forwe didn’t understand the pattern houseswere numbered by within the wards andnumber of available contact hours werelimited. So we fell back to a system-atic random sample. In this approachwe would visit one house out of a clusterof 5-10 houses and then would hop o↵ toanother cluster. Following our back-upplan we succeeded in surveying 93 house-holds consisting of 324 individuals. Wecovered all 11 out of 13 wards for the sur-vey. The questionnaire we prepared wasvery extensive with questions which as-sessed the responders awareness regard-ing waste segregation, e-waste, its harm-ful impacts, local disposal mechanism,their attitude to old/out of use electron-ics and electrical items. Furthermore weenquired about their current number ofEEE they are using at their home. Thiswas for a further objective which will bementioned thereon.

Figure 3: Wards visited for the survey (Source:Google Maps)

(b) IIT Mandi: In IIT Mandi as well weconducted household surveys visiting asmany as 30 Faculty and sta↵ houses.The questionnaire and strategy were al-most the same. These households had78 individuals. Further, we surveyed47 students in IIT Mandi hostels out ofwhich 19 were from 3 seater rooms, 16from 2 seater rooms and 12 from one-

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seater ones.

2. Assessing the Government Approach to E-Waste Management: For this aspect, we per-formed three face-to-face interviews. The firstone of these was a cleanliness worker in MandiNagar Parishad, the second person was a Ju-nior Engineer in Nagar Parishad, the thirdperson being Secretary Mrs. Urvashi Walia.The questions were mostly regarding wastedumping and e-waste management, handlingand disposal attempts (if any).

Estimating the volume of e-waste

: This objective aimed at estimating the volumeof e-waste generated today and predicting volumesfor the coming decades. The first part of this taskproved to be extremely unprogressive. There wasno o�cial data regarding e-waste: the reason forwhich we will uncover in our findings. Addition-ally, no NGOs had undertaken any such studies aswell. Attempts at learning the same from house-holds also seemed futile as most people didn’t seemto recall what e-waste they had thrown a month,a week or a year prior. For the second part whichrequired us to estimate e-waste in coming decades,we added specific tables in our questionnaire whichwould record volumes of 19 di↵erent items usuallyfound in households which come under EEE.[GlobalE-waste Monitor, 2017] For factoring in the damagethey may have incurred already we also recordedhow old these items were and if they had any re-pair history. The idea of projection was based on asimplifying assumption that e-waste generation perperson will remain the same in the coming decades.This was made for two reasons:

1. Lack of any computable metric which wouldtell us how the consumption volume may in-crease per person.

2. As items keep on becoming lighter and multi-functional, the e↵ect of any increase in thenumber of items would be equally outweighedby the corresponding light-weightedness.

Once we had the above data about e-waste gener-ation per person, we computed the expected com-pounded growth in the population of the areas in-volved (Mandi town, IIT Mandi Faculty Blocs, IITMandi student numbers). The two multiplied to-gether gave us our estimates about the wastes whichwould be generated in the coming years.

Prototype development to demonstrate re-covery of materials from e-waste

The following image describes the standard pro-cedure of handling e-waste.

Figure 4: E-waste handling(Uddin, Jalal, 2012)

As the schema is very extensive and requires alot of labor, most of which would be easily availableonce the requisite infrastructure develops. Also,the technical aspect of the schema which appealedmost to us and appeared achievable was the recov-ery part. So we developed our prototype after tak-ing motivations from [Tiwari, S., Kishore, S., et al,2017]. Our prototype basically involves density sep-aration, magnetic separation and eddy current sep-aration after dismantling e-waste components.Ourprototype employs physical method of separationand no use of chemical whatsoever. It is basedon simple principles like density di↵erence, behav-ior of materials towards magnet and how metalinteracts with eddy currents. From the outputof our prototype, electrochemical methods can beused to achieve better grade of metals. Our proto-type is easily scalable and can be employed locallyas well as commercially. In its current state, theprototype can separate the fine-grained scraps ofPCBs(Printed Circuit Boards) into polymers, fer-rous metals and non-ferrous metal particles. Wehave chosen PCBs because their contribution to e-waste is on all-time rise.”The global printed circuitboard market is expected to reach an estimated$72.6 billion by 2022 and is forecast to grow at aCAGR of 3.2% from 2017 to 2022.” [Research andMarkets, PCB].

Figure 5: CAD Models of components of our pro-totype

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Estimated value of recovered materials in theprocess

Figure 6: Value that can be generated from e-waste(Statistia)

As much as 55 billion euros of wealth is pro-jected to be recoverable from e-waste as in 2016.Even if we reduce this number by one-fourth itwould dwarf a number of small economies. Thus,recovery is one arena where e-waste handling gi-ants must invest in. Our prototype recovers mate-rials from a PCBs. For one PCB, extracted froma mouse which costs about rupees 110 to manu-facture, we calculated the value of the recoveredmaterial using some estimates on cost of Alimu-nium, Copper, Iron, Ceramic in PCBs and iron.Also, this does not include the reduction in cost in-curred for recovering metals in pure forms. On theother hand, this prevents PCBs from their even-tual (more harmful) disposal mode of incinerationreducing pollution. On the economic side of things,our hunch is that the value recovered may be lowerthan expected.

Results and Discussion

After this extensive project of 12 weeks, weobtained results which ranged from expected toalarming with some consequences instilling in usthe hope that e-waste management, although adaunting task facing the world may be handled justwell-enough in the future.

Results

We obtained some great insights into how tech-nologies and their counter-e↵ects interact with peo-ple in general. Here are our results viewed in lightof our objectives:

1. Comprehending the e-waste disposal be-haviour of the surrounding community and

the data on generation of e-waste:

(a) Although the literacy rate in Himachalis one of the highest among states withrelatively larger size, at 83.78%, we weresurprised to see that as much as 59% ofour responders in the Mandi town didn'tknow about e-waste. Digging deeper wefound that many people had the follow-ing notions about it:

i. After being dumped e-waste mayemit radiations leading to a plethoraof diseases.

ii. Items such as battery may blast un-der pressure which may then cause arippling e↵ect on the dumping site.

Figure 7: Should e-waste be dumped?

iii. Some professed it smokes the airwhen incinerated, a phenomenonMandi is actually witnessing withmany a weekend evenings feelingashy.

iv. The populace was single-mindedabout some aspects though:

A. All the e-waste collection, re-covery and disposal is handledsolely by the informal sector.'Kabadiwalas' are a daily ser-vice, although people need themeither monthly or quarterly.

B. There’s no e-waste disposal orcollection centre around.

C. The solid waste collection in-frastructure of the town is ingreat shape and the dirt wagonmakes its appearance regularly.

D. Most people were more thanhappy to tie in with the currentsystem a collection schedule fore-waste. The most preferablefrequency being between 30 - 60days.

v. Source segregation seems to havetaken a hit as only 68% actual in-dulged in the practice.

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vi. 87.5% of the respondents believede-waste causes/could cause pollu-tion whereas only half of themcould actually materialize about thespecifics.

Figure 8: E-waste causes pollution?

vii. When asked about what they dowith their defunct e-items, we got amixed response with options rang-ing from throwing them in trash,storing at home, getting repaired togiving them to others.

Figure 9: Dealing with defunct e-items.

viii. For the 324 people surveyed inMandi, the estimated potential e-waste is 1388.62 kg. For the entireUrban population which sums up to68,190, this potential e-waste comesup to 292.25 tonnes. In 2028 thenumber would swell up to at least329.9 tonnes.

ix. Most people did not know of thenew provision of EPR(ExtendedProducer Responsibility) underwhich the producers are responsiblefor dealing with the e-waste thattheir products generate.

(b) In order to get a complete picture, weperformed the survey in both the southas well as north campus of IIT Mandi.

For student surveys we had the follow-ing guiding philosophy: mostly aware-ness questions and some idea regardingthe e-items they consume. Most of ourfindings tied in with what was foundin the town, here are those which con-trasted with our findings in Mandi:

i. 90% people we interviewed on cam-pus had some inkling of what e-waste is and what its harmful im-pacts on environment are, what dis-eases it can cause.

ii. Source segregation was practised inall houses.

iii. Dealing with defunct items mostlyinvolved storing them at homes.Since most items were relatively newso there wasn't so much defunctitems or items with repair historyreported.

iv. Awareness regarding EPR is loweven in Faculty members and stu-dents, with only about 5% knowingabout the provision.

v. As much as 505 kgs of potential e-waste is currently present. As thenumber households increase to thisvalue is estimated to reach 8400 kgsin 2028.

vi. As far as potential e-waste per stu-dent is concerned, considering anaverage of 1000 individuals now,this sums up to 1749 kgs. This isexpected to rise to 8745 kgs in 2028with an expected number of 5000students then.

(c) Although the current solid waste man-agement of Mandi is top-notch, giventhat it is the cleanest city in India, the e-waste handling situation hasn’t dawnedon the authority as of this study. There’sno treatment plant or plan reported, nei-ther do they collect the e-waste them-selves (as confirmed in the interviews weperformed). In light of the fact thatthe new e-waste regulations came intoforce just two years ago it would be tooearly to conclude that e-waste manage-ment will be a problem for the city.

2. The prototype and the value of material re-covered:

(a) Given finely grinded PCB scrap (the col-lection and crushing of which we out-sourced), our prototype can separate itinto polymers, ferrous, non-ferrous met-als and ceramics.

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(b) There is some overlap across categoriessince some ceramics also have magneticproperties.

(c) Before switching from the density sepa-rator apparatus to the belts, we need todry the slurry.

(d) After some fine-tuning of locations re-quired for the collection boxes under thebelt, we got some overlap between mag-netic and non-magnetic particles.

(e) The eddy current separator does a de-cent job of getting the non-ferrous (alsothe most valuable part) metals separatedfrom the scrap powder.

(f) The results of our calculation:

The cost of raw materials for one PCB= Rs. 29.19[PCB Prdouction profile,2012] The cost recovered by us, forone PCB = Rs. 6.59 E�ciency =(6.59/29.19)X100 = 23%

(g) The e�ciency observed above may notseem significant. There’s a catchthough. As a society, we mostly tie gainsto monetary benefits but there's a costwe have mostly neglected. This is thecost of the harm to the environment thatwe do when these PCBs are burned outin the open. Additionally, this is in factthe cost of the material saved from get-ting wasted.

Discussion

There are multiple points of discussion:

1. A majority of people are unaware of thethreats to the environment that e-wastepresents and the damages it can do to hu-man body. This is in stark contrast to thefact that most have been using the items forquite some time.

2. Even though people are unaware of thespecifics of e-waste, most still believe that itcauses pollution. This will work as propellingfactor to any project such as these hoping toe�ciently manage e-waste.

3. The implementation of guidelines dealingwith e-waste are very lax and almost non-existent.

4. Most people are ready to hand over their e-waste for disposal which unlike similar studieswhich have indicate people's unwillingness tohandout their EoL(End of Life) goods. Al-though some of the e-waste hoarded up in

the household are due to emotional attach-ments yet most individuals were ready get ridof them.

5. There’s also little-to-no use of refurbished e-items imported from other countries. This isa welcome sight since such items have lesserlife and higher failure rates which would ex-ponentially increase e-waste generation.

6. Overall the awareness level among people isnot optimal but still stands out in developingcountry like India.

7. One area of major concern that this projectunearths is the management of e-waste bythe informal sector: (investigated as part ofour interview with one such professional[namewithheld])

(a) They involve minimal use of technol-ogy with crude procedures carried outin poorer parts of the city.

(b) The recycling drill involves involvesphysically breaking down componentsoften without any protective gear.

(c) They burn poly vinyl chloride (PVC)wires to retrieve copper and melt leadand mercury-laden parts.

(d) The workforce: the urban poor with lowliteracy lacking awareness of the hazardsof the toxic e- wastes.

(e) None of this is regulated. Some of thematerial recovered as well as e-wastefinds its way Chandigarh.

8. EPR is unknown to people and thus may notutilize it when required.

9. IIT Mandi community is better informed yetpoorly equipped with dealing with the malicesince there’s no plant for the same. Althoughthe situation may change given that we havealready taken the first step.

10. Our prototype is far from perfect but it sumsup both the issues that any such plant is ex-pected to face. The design can be improvedby:

(a) It is not fully automated but it uses thestandard conveyer belt philosophy so itcan be automated with minimum e↵ort.

(b) More fine-grained separation is possiblein case we also go the next level of treat-ment where we use chemicals for separa-tion.

(c) The choice of liquid for density separa-tion is water. This is both practical andscalable.

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Conclusion and Recommendations

Conclusion

We have drawn a few conclusions from thefieldwork and technical rigour we have put in theproject:

1. The implementation of the guidelines fore-waste management are not in practice.There’s no documented collection system, ora treatment plant nearby. This falls in theline of reasoning that e-waste is a slow poisonand shows its e↵ects only after long exposure.Thus the e-waste generated today will showits wrath 5-10 years from now. Thus the com-munity has not taken many steps to keep thisstream of waste in check.

2. The general awareness level in both the townas well as the IIT Mandi community isabove average whereas the knowledge of thespecifics has been mostly non-existent or un-founded (eg. the belief that e-waste can causeradiation when dumped).

3. Consumers are unaware of the EPR(ExtendedProducer Responsibility) clause that keepsthe responsibility of e-waste management inthe producers. This when implemented infull e↵ect will make the entire process moretransparent and assessable.

4. Our prototype describes a workflow of theprocess that can help in recovery of materi-als from e-waste. The process however is notreally very economically viable. This couldprove to be a deterrent for the initial adoptionof the technology. Although there are moresophisticated practices mentioned in the lit-erature and also in practice in the developedcountries.

5. The volumes of potential e-waste present inthe various households as well as inside thecampus is sizeable and comparable to one oftier-two towns in China. That is not veryalarming yet a significant value.

6. Material recovery and recycling are the wayto go if we want to truly manage e-waste. Dis-posal has mostly proved to be disastrous un-less performed extremely meticulously.

Recommendations

After careful thought and considering the e↵ectsof all the variables involved in the problem we havethe following recommendations:

1. Collection: The most dreary aspect of anywaste management process is the collectionpart. Segregation and directed collection cango a great way in dealing with the hazardsand implications that e-waste produces. Ane↵ective collection system enables the chan-nelization of the e-waste to appropriate re-cycling facilities and increases reuse of cer-tain components. Since under the EPR sys-tem, the producer is responsible for his/herproducts. A take-back system could be estab-lished. This could be either individual whereproducers can have direct contact with dis-mantlers or recyclers which allows them toget back the re-usable components from theirobsolete equipment. Or it can be a collec-tive system where the producer would enterinto a contractual agreement with a collec-tion agency which would be responsible forthe collection of the waste from the gener-ator.[Uddin, Jalal, 2012] Factoring in thatthe solid waste door-to-door collection mech-anism in Mandi is in good health. The collec-tive model would cater better to this use case.Although people have seemed to be highlyreceptive and supportive of this initiative oftreating e-waste and have agreed to handingover their defunct items once the collectionmechanism comes into full force we suggesttake back system provide some discount onthe purchase of new items to those who read-ily cooperate.

2. Storage: As volume of e-waste generation canbe erratic, at least in the initial years of a suchan initiative. Therefore we require covered ar-eas for storage of e-waste till such time thatthe waste is recycled or treated. This wouldhave a weatherproof covering minimizing anycontamination that could escape from the fa-cility. Appropriate spillage collection facili-ties would make the storage more beneficialto the environment.

3. Establishment of more facilities for recoveryand recycling of e-waste. This could beginwith the model followed by e-waste recyclerspresent in Delhi and then adopted as seen fit.

4. In such establishments which deal with e-waste collection and treatment the informalsector workforce should be employeed. Thisis so because by formalizing these processeswe are taking away their major(and possiblyonly) source of income.

5. Proper implementation of EPR so that theemphasis shifts from the consumer to the pro-ducer to handle the e-waste. This can thenhelp in achieving an arrangement whereby

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those who produce goods share the responsi-bility for the environmental impacts through-out the whole of their life cycle, from resourceextraction to recycling, reuse and disposal(Nnorom et.al, 2008). This would also addthe cost of recovery and recycling in the re-tail price of such products, thus actually fac-toring in management and treatment costs inthe market.

6. Accentuated awareness and coordinated ef-fort of the local self-government in material-izing the guidelines envisioned in 2016. Thiswould help us achieve a better environmentand save us from the ill-e↵ects that e-wastecauses.

Acknowledgments:

Our team would like to thank the following peo-ple for their assistance and guidance during thecourse of our project:

Our course instructor Dr. Devika and Dr. In-grid for guiding us and telling about aspects of thisproject.

Our mentors Dr. Shyamasree and Dr. Vish-wanatha for valuable guidance throughout thecourse.

Dr. Rinki Sarkar for taking a valuable workshopand telling us about the aspects of a good survey.

Faculty, population of mandi and students ofIIT Mandi for giving us their valuable time for thesurvey

Our TA Ms. Priya and Mechanical Workshopassistants for helping their best.

IIT Mandi and WPI, for providing us with theopportunity to complete this project.

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