Economic potential of recycling e-waste in India and its impact on import of materials

Abstract

The circular economy promotes recirculation of materials for pollution prevention and secondary materials management. The e-waste generation poses a severe threat to the environment. It can also become an urban mine for the future supply of resources from its rich repository of precious and critical raw materials. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) can be one of the instruments to tap the secondary raw materials embedded in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) stream and to overcome future supply chain-related risks. The present study estimates the e-waste generation in India using market supply method combined with substance flow analysis to quantify the common, precious, and critical raw materials embedded in WEEE and further determines their recovery economic potential. Moreover, it discusses the impact of WEEE recycling on the import of common, precious, and critical raw materials. It is the first study to consider the case of WEEE management in India to determine its recovery economic potential. The analysis reveals that the recycling of WEEE can fulfil the demand of a Platinum group of metals for the electronics industry. The maximum amount of critical raw materials has been found in television sets. WEEE recycling can reduce dependency on importing critical raw materials such as antimony from other countries. Therefore, the study would be helpful for policymakers as well as supply chain actors like recyclers to understand the recovery economic potential of combined common, precious, and critical raw materials.