Electronics waste (E-waste) is the fastest growing waste tream in the industrialized and urbanized world. Few decades back, the amount of waste generated was considered small enough to be diluted in the environment. With massive growth of electronics and hardware sector, the demand of the electronics products has been enhanced manifold. Faster change of features in the electronics devices and availability of the improved products forcing the consumers to dispose the electronics products rapidly. This has caused generation of e-waste alarmingly. The major source of e-waste is the disposal of the hardware and electronic items from Government offices, public and private sectors, academic and research institutes. Household consumers are also contributing significant volume of end-of-life electronics products. Apart from domestic generation in India, the imported e-waste volume is also growing substantially, though, import is prohibited in India. Like other parts of the world, India is also facing serious crisis due to growing generation of e-waste. The main challenge in India is to create awareness of the environmental, social and economic aspects of e-waste among the public, consumers, producers, institutions, policy makers and legislators. The situation is not so grim in the developed countries, as the laws are adequate to take care of the stocking, disposal and landfilling of the end-of life electronics products. Moreover, availability of skilled recyclers and adequate technologies in those countries make the e-waste recycling a profitable business. It is observed in recent years that large volume of ewaste is being exported from western countries to Asian countries like China, India, etc. for disposal. It seems the recycling business in western countries is becoming economically non-viable due to rising cost of manpower and availability of input materials for running the plant in full capacity. The western countries are, therefore, compelled to find out alternative destinations for disposal, where the labour cost is comparatively low and the environmental laws are not enforced so strictly. The imported materials are thus reaching through illegal routes in India, China for recycling at small-scale units in non-formal sector. These units use primitive, non-scientific, and non-environment-friendly methods. Ewaste is hazardous in nature due to presence of toxic substances like Pb, Cr6, Hg, Cd and flame retardants (polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenylethers etc.). E-waste disposal mixed with solid municipal waste is posing a greater threat for environmental degradation in the developing countries, where formal recycling technology is not available and non-formal operators are extracting precious metals through crude means for easy money. The extraction of metals in nonformal units is carried out by dipping printed circuit board (PCBs) in the acidic/alkaline solutions and heating/ burning of PCB. These processes are harmful to the workers and to the environment, which are the major concern of e-waste management in developing countries. Non-formal units are not registered and their operations are also considered illegal in India as per the existing laws on industry, labour and hazardous substances. Despite, non-formal business is flourishing in India through the network involving collectors, traders and unorganized recyclers. It is felt that just enacting laws and routine vigilance, the growing business of non-formal sector cannot be stopped. It is appropriate to provide alternative source of income to nearly half million people, involved in this profession. The e-waste recycling, however, can be made a profitable business if it is managed professionally. Ewaste contains valuable materials including metal, plastics and glass, which are of the 95% of the total ewaste by weight. The populated PCBs/ connectors are of 3 - 5% of the total e-waste (Gao et al., 2004;http://www.ewasteindia.in/environment.asp) containvaluable metals like gold, silver, copper, and other precious metals like palladium, tantalum etc. In developed countries, well established processes are available for processing PCBs to extract the precious metals with highest yields (Gao et al., 2004; Xuefeng et al., 2005; Mou et al., 2004; Hanapi and Tang, 2006; Hyunmyung and Yong-Chul 2006). These processes are automated and minimal involvement of manpower is required. In contrast, the e-waste processing technologies in developing countries are not yet matured and the recycling is still being carried out in non-formal units by primitive ways. It is estimated that 95% of the e-waste recycling in India has been carried out in non-formal units (Report on “E-waste Inventorisation in India”, MAITGTZ Study, 2007). Therefore, a substantial amount of valuable materials are being lost due to unskilled operation. The recycling units is developed countries, on the other hand, are also facing shortage of materials and thereby the operation becomes economical non-viable. An attempt has thus been made to bridge the formal and non-formal sectors in holistic manner to provide a profitable business model. In the proposed approach, non-formal units will carry out activities including collection, dismantling, disassembly and segregating of the ewaste. The segregated materials like metals (iron, aluminium and copper), glass and plastic parts will be sold to the respective smelters, re-processors etc. for recycling through the conventional practices, which are already prevailed for other materials recovered from municipality waste.

The segregated item like PCB and connectors which are most valuable due to presence of gold, silver, and copper, palladium, tantalum and traces of other precious metals will be converted into powder by a professional agency. The metal assay content of the powder will be assessed by the recognized laboratory. The non-formal will bear the cost of the process as well as the assay testing. The worth of the powder will then be decided based on the metal assay content. Non-formal sector can sell the PCB powder to the established recyclers at the right market price. This will prevent them from carrying out the hazardous extraction route of precious metals. The non-formal sector will be responsible from the collection of the e-waste till the selling of the PCB powder.

The process of PCB powder to recover metals (copper, lead, gold, silver) and precious metals (palladium, tantalum etc.) will be carried out by the formal units in the developed countries, where the maximum yield of recovery will be achieved and loss of value metals to the landfill can be minimized. The e-waste recycling and management will be profitable proposition in near future,once the outsource model is established in the society.