Dr. Sanjay Joshi

In the absence of enough authorised recycling facilities, even unauthorised units are filling a vital gap. Seelampur, on the outskirts of Delhi, is almost like a huge marketplace for discarded technology. Old laptops, broken mobile phones, outdated computers and damaged monitors are piled up everywhere. The narrow, crowded lanes are filled with the constant sounds of hammers hitting metal, tools scraping against machines and workers shouting instructions. But behind this chaotic marketplace...

India is now the fifth-largest generator of e-waste in the world, after the USA, China, Japan and Germany. Yet, less than two per cent of the e-waste generated in the country is formally recycled. Since 2018, India has been generating more than two million tonnes of e-waste every year. The country also receives substantial quantities of e-waste from other parts of the world, adding further pressure to an already overburdened waste-management system. For many Indian cities, the sight of...

The discarded device may no longer be useful to its owner, but many of the materials inside it still have value. The scale of the e-waste problem is enormous. A United Nations study estimated that 62 million tonnes of e-waste were generated worldwide during 2024-25. Yet only a fraction was disposed of or recycled through proper systems. An electronic device may look like a single object, but it is actually a complex combination of many components and materials. Each of these components has a...