Mumbai To Start First E-Waste Recycling Plant

Mumbai will start the first plant for scientific recycling of e-waste generated in the region. With the proposed plant the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) will be relieved of the problem of e-waste. As per the research conducted by Greenpeace, Mumbai has around 50,000 tonne of e-waste every year. This is expected to increase to three lakh tonne per annum by 2011. Tenders to set up the facility will be invited by MMRDA by the end of July 2009 and the plant is expected to be operational by 2010.

E-waste has become a serious cause of concern for the society and the problem needs to be addressed effectively, said environment secretary Valsa Nair.The environment department of the state government, along with the MMRDA, will soon start a formal e-waste recycling facility in the region through a public-private partnership. The pre-feasibility study conducted by IRG Systems has given highly encouraging results. The report submitted two weeks ago shows that such facility, if created in the MMR, would be highly feasible, Nair said.

Apart from that, the manner in which e-waste is presently being recycled is highly harmful for the environment and human health as well, Nair said.

Currently, the total e-waste generation in Mumbai and Pune is around five lakh metric tonne per annum. As per the Nair, currently e-waste recycling is carried out in two steps - dismantling and segregating. Recovery of valuable metals and resource recovery are not taking place. The reason for this is that resource recovery facility is available only in Belgium. Hence it is necessary to set up a proper recycling plant.

The project will be implemented in phases. In the first phase, the capacity of the plant would be around 7,500 tonne per annum, which would later be increased. We have plans to start resource recovery facility at the plant in the future, Nair added.

Once the plant is functional, the contractor will establish e-waste collection channel in the region.