E- Waste Management


National symposium on e-waste management
– setting the future” was held at the Centre for Quality Management System, Jadavpur University co sponsored by West Bengal State Electricity Board on 17th February 2005 to create awareness amongst the manufacturers, users and respective authorities & regulators on the potential problems for the environment and scope of employment generation. Nearly 100 delegates comprising of manufacturers like HCL, users like WBSEB, TCS, UCO BANK, SBI, UBI etc, Government & municipalities authorities, Central Pollution Control Board, KMDA, research organizations like NEERI, S N College, recycling entrepreneurs and many others attended the workshop.


Mr. Ashoke Bhattacharya, Hon’ble Minister in charge of department of Municipal affairs, urban development, country & town planning, Govt. of West Bengal inaugurated the Workshop. He expressed his concern about the generation of e-waste.
Prof M Mitra, Dean, FET welcome the delegates. Pof. Mitra said that timely action on the issue is needed soon.

Prof A N Basu, Vice Chancellor, Jadavpur University presided over the inaugural function. He said that, it is the manufacturers who are the producers of potential e-waste. So a major responsibility of controlling and preventing pollution generated from e-waste is bestowed on them. But users have to show due diligence towards effective implementation of e-waste management system.


MR B R Naidu, Eastern Zonal officer of CPCB graced the occasion.
Prof A Bhattacharya raised the vote of thanks.


Prof Sadhan K Ghosh, Principal Investigator of the Research Project E-Waste Management DREP, CQMS spoke on the theme of the workshop. The theme is to bring the concept of “save environment through reuse, recycle & reducing e-waste”. He explained the ill effects of e-waste in the environment. He proposed a model for e-waste management for considering for its implementation at different localities. He don’t want to create panic but raises the issue so that timely action plan can be initiated by the stakeholders before the problem is aggravated.


The recommendations placed by Prof Ghosh:


1. Awareness campaign for the manufacturers, buy-back network, major users and regulators on the “ ill effects of e-waste , its eco friendly handling and disposal” be started by the department of IT & Environment of different state Governments, Central & state pollution control boards, research organizations and IT industry associations.

2. e-waste management system be implemented by the municipal authorities at specially identified areas of major district towns with the help of manufacturers and major users of our country. as an experiment the common facility may be started at Salt lake city of Kolkata, Computer city at Hyderabad, industrial area at Gurgaon, at Delhi, Peenya estate at Bangalore, identified industrial estates at Mumbai & Chennai.

3. A corpus fund is generated with the help of manufacturers. The expenditures of the construction & running of these common facilities would be borne from this fund.

4. Central pollution control board reviews the Handling of hazardous rule 2000 with respect to e-waste considering the present situation and potential situation in next 10 years. The same may be reviewed at an interval of two years.

5. Governments and manufacturers invest on research & development activities for developing effective e-waste management system including recycling & extraction technology considering the socio economic structure of the country.

6. Media take a special role in this process.


Click here to view the flow chart of the process