Waste management: India could be in a spot

With the ever increasing demand for automobiles including two-wheelers in the country, India might face a major crisis in automobile and electronic waste management if appropriate steps are not taken immediately, warned experts.

Recycling of wastes is an employment-intensive multi-million dollar business but could be a environmental hazard if proper policies and regulations and R and D are not in place with immediate effect, experts attending a day-long seminar on `Recycling for electronic and automotive industry' organised by Indian National Academy of Engineering, said.

"The problem of automobile waste is yet to attract attention in India although the number of cars and two wheelers have increased enormously only over the last decade.

India has no formal regulations regarding recyclability and disposal of `end of life vehicles' and

"we also do not have any infrastructure, organised system for collection, dismantling, shredding and procesing auto scrap," they said.

India will also face a unique problem in handling millions of two and three wheelers as no other country has such a large population using them, they said.

Currently, scrapped vehicles are cut and sold by low-tech units resulting in low recoveries and environmnet pollution.

"It is estimated that by the year 2020, proper recycling procedures and systems can lead to recovery of over 15,00,000 tonnes of steel scrap, 180,000 tonnes aluminium and 75,000 tonnes of each of recoverable plastic and rubber," said Captain N S Mohan Ram, Advisor TVS.

The residue will be of about 25,000 tonnes to be disposed off and this will be increasing at a rate of 10 per cent per annum thereafter, Ram added.