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The government, indusrty, users and NGOs have taken notice of the
growing hazards of e-waste and there is consensous that recycling
and resource recovery has to be environmentally compatible.
A National WEEE Task Force was formed in July 2004, headed by Chairman
CPCB and consists of officials/ representatives of MoEF, CPCB, Ministry
of IT, regulatory agencies (representatives of SPCBs), NGOs, Industry
Associations/Industry, experts in the field and producers both formal
& informal.
The mandate of national task force is to identify, plan and implement
all issues related to e-waste in India. The National WEEE Task force
has five thrust areas:
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Policy & Legislation: To study the feasibility and format
of a legislation on the handling and recycling of e-waste,
not only as an environmental protection measure, but also
to keep pace with international legislations such as the WEEE
Directive in the EU. Led by CPCB, this covers issues of developing
quickly national guidelines allowing for starting formal recycling
operations, developing 'WEEE Rules', formulating standards
and licensing procedures, etc.
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Baseline Study: Led by the Indo-German-Swiss eWaste Project,
this covers issues of quickly generating a national overview
of WEEE by creating a database and developing a National Register
/ Clearing House to have a sufficiently accurate view on the
present e-waste recycling system throughout India. The study
will assess present scenario i.e. quantification, characterisation,
disposal practices and environmental impacts and based on
this, make projections for future quantities of e-waste.
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Restructuring Recycling: Preliminary studies in this field
have shown a surprisingly vivid, complex and efficient sector
for e-waste recycling. However some processes require improvements
(both in skills & technologies) and some have to be abandoned
altogether due to the severe risks for health and environment.
These processes should be transferred to the formal sector.
Led by the Indo-Swiss-German eWaste Project, this Task force
covers issues of restructuring and 'cleaning up' the present
recycling sector, up-grading skills and technologies, substituting
risky informal processes by the formal sector, etc.
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EPR: The task force, led by MAIT, covers the issues of system
ownership, financing, logistics, contractual arrangements
with recyclers etc within the framework of Extended Producer
Responsibility (EPR) in the context of WEEE Management Systems.
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Awareness Building: The current awareness levels regarding
the existence and dangers of e-waste are extremely low, partly
because the e-waste being generated is not as large as in
developed countries. However, urgent measures are to be taken
now to make consumers and manufacturers aware of e-waste.
This task force covers issues of informing the public, creating
awareness campaigns etc.
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