How to start E-Waste Recycling Plant?

What is an E-Waste?

E-Waste is an abbreviated term used to denote Electronic Waste. E-waste is electronic products that are unwanted, not working, and nearing or at the end of their “useful life.” Computers, TV sets, stereos, photocopy machines, and printers are everyday electronic products.

According to the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016 ‘E-Waste’ means any electrical and electronic equipment, whose life has been ended or in part discarded as waste by the consumer or bulk consumer as well as rejects from the manufacturing industry, refurbishment industry, and repair processes.

The scenario of E-Waste Production in India

Electronic waste is spreading a very serious public health and environmental issue in India. India is the “fifth-largest electronic waste producer in the world”. It is estimated that 2 million tons of e-waste is generated annually.

Different category electronic items contribute to E-Waste annually.

•  Personal Computing Devices accounts for around 70% of e-waste, telecom sector accounts for 12% E-Waste, 8% from medical equipment, and 7% from electric equipment.
• The Government division, public division companies, and private division companies produce nearly 75% of electronic waste, with the contribution of individual households is only 16%.

What is an E-Waste Recycling Plant?

Before we talk about what is E-Waste Recycling Plant first talk about what is E-Waste recycling.

E-waste recycling is the reuse and reprocessing of electrical and electronic equipment of any type that has been rejected or regarded as end-of-life products. E-Waste includes home equipment such as TV Sets, Refrigerators, printers, fans, Radios, and information technology equipment such as computers, mobile phones, laptops, batteries, circuit boards, hard disks, and monitors among others; and other electronic utilities such as luxurious electrical equipment, lighting equipment, and gaming equipment.

An E-Waste recycling plant is a facility where end-of-life electronic products are transported for recycling purposes. The E-Waste collected from the consumers is transported to the E-Waste recycling plant for segregation, dismantling, treatment & disposal.

Environmental Laws Applicable for Setting Up an E-Waste Recycling Plant

1. Before establishing an E-Waste Recycling Plant, the occupier of the recycling plant has to take permission from the concerned department. The Concerned department after verifying all the documents of the project proponent makes the decision to grant or reject the permission.
2. The Consent to Establish under Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.

E-Waste Categories:

If we try to find out how many electronic items are there which can be included in E-Waste then this will be a little bit difficult for us, because there are a number of electronic products in the market.

That’s why Electrical and Electronic Equipment and their component are broadly categorized into two categories which include all the Electrical & Electronic Equipment.

Information Technology and Telecommunication Equipment

1. Centralized data processing: Mainframes, Minicomputers
2. Personal Computer
3. Laptop Computers
4. Personal Computing: Notebook Computers
5. Personal Computing: Notepad Computers
6. Printers including cartridges
7. Copying equipment
8. Electrical and electronic typewriters
9. User terminals and systems
10. Fax Machines
11. Telex
12. Telephones
13. Pay telephones
14. Cordless telephones
15. Cellular telephones
16. Answering systems

Consumer Electrical and Electronics

1. Television sets
2. Refrigerator
3. Washing Machine
4. Air-conditioners excluding centralized air conditioning plants
5. Fluorescent and other Mercury-containing lamps

Why is it important to manage E-waste?

Today the world is witnessing the impact of e-waste pollution, which rapidly increases and causing the degradation of the environment.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), when the toxic materials that leach from E-Waste come in direct contact with humans, and animals, and with environmental health risks may arise and degradation of the environment also takes place. The toxic materials are such as lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Lack of awareness of E-Waste leads to difficulty in managing E-Waste, because of this, a proper recycling process needs to be put in place to protect us and future generations.

Requirement of Facilities in Recycling Plant

1. An E-Waste recycling facility install suitable wastewater treatment equipment for treatment of wastewater and air pollution control equipment depending upon the type of processes going on in the recycling plant.
2. Suitable space for dismantling equipment shall be installed where manual dismantling can be carried out.
3. Noise control devices for machines like crusher, grinders, and shredder needs to be provided so that it doesn’t contribute to noise pollution.
4. The workers involved in recycling operations shall wear proper PPEs (gloves, masks, goggles, gumboots.
5. Adequate facilities for onsite collection and storage of residues, floor cleaning dust and other hazardous material shall be provided and sent to secure land fill facility by making an agreement with the TSDF (Treatment, Storage & Disposal Facility) operator.

E-Waste Recycling Process

People those are benefited from setting up E-Waste plants are manufacturers, producers, Consumers, bulk consumers, collection centers, dealers, e-retailers, refurbishers, dismantlers, and recyclers those are engaged in manufacturing.

Components Retrieved from E-Waste Recycling Process.

The e-waste recycling process is highly labor-intensive which requires a number of people to work together and consists of many steps.

Following are the steps for the E-Waste recycling Process:

1. Sorting
2. Dismantling
3. Large size reduction process
4. Small size reduction process
5. Magnetic Separation
6. Non-metallic and metallic components separate
7. Water separation

E-Waste Recycling Process

1. Sorting: The time, at which the e-waste items reach the recycling plant, the first step is to sort all the items manually.
2.  Dismantling: After manual sorting, the second step includes the labor process of manual dismantling. The broken material is separated into two categories one that can be re-used & the second that is still in the recycling process.
3. Large size reduction process: In this process, the items that cannot be dismantled fully are shredded together with the other dismantled parts.
4. Small size reduction process: The finer e-waste particles are evenly spread out on a conveyor belt. The evenly spread out e-waste particles are then broken down further.
5. Magnetic Separation: In this step, the magnet is used to remove the magnetic materials that including steel and iron from the e-waste.
6. Non-metallic and metallic components separation: The sixth step is the separation of metallic and non-metallic components. Copper, Aluminium, and brass are separated from the E-Waste so that only non-metallic materials are left behind in the E-Waste debris.
7. Water Separation: Water Separation is the last step, plastic content is separated out from the glass by use of water. Once the separation is done all the materials retrieved is then resold as raw materials for re-use.

Components Retrieved from E-Waste Recycling Process

1. Plastic
2. Metal
3. Mercury
4. Printed Circuit Boards
5. Hard Drives
6. Ink and Toner Cartridges
7. Batteries

Licenses required for setting up E-waste Plant

1. ISO CERTIFICATE
2. NOC From SPCB
3. G.S.T. Registration
4. E-Waste Rules registration 2016 

So, if you are interested to protect the environment from rapidly increasing e-waste, connect with Corpseed.