E-waste conundrum: Draft guidelines point to impractical over-regulation

India is one of the world's largest producers of e-waste in South Asia, generating 1.6 million tonnes of discarded material, almost 67 per cent of this is unprocessed

Complaints by manufacturers of consumer electronic goods against the Centre’s latest draft guidelines setting minimum prices for recycling and processing electrical and electronic waste point to impractical over-regulation in an industry that urgently needs to transition from the informal to the organised sector. Manufacturers of consumer electronics have alleged that the draft guidelines have ignored their representations to the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change. The rules have sharply raised the cost producers pay recyclers to recycle e-waste products. For instance, the price of recycling metals has been raised to Rs 80 a kg against Rs