The electronic industry is the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry (Radha, 2002; DIT, 2003). During  the last decade, it has assumed the role of providing a forceful leverage to the socio - economic and technological growth  of a developing society. The consequence of its consumer oriented growth  combined with rapid product obsolescence and technological advances are a new environmental challenge - the growing menace of “Electronics Waste” or “e waste” that consists of obsolete electronic devices.  It is an emerging problem as well as a business opportunity of increasing significance, given the volumes of e-waste being generated and the content of both toxic and valuable materials in them. The fraction including iron, copper, aluminium, gold and other metals in e-waste is over 60%, while plastics account for about 30% and the hazardous pollutants comprise only about 2.70% (Widmer et al., 2005).  Solid waste management, which is already a mammoth task in India, is becoming more complicated by the invasion of e-waste, particularly computer waste. E-waste from developed countries find an easy way into developing countries in the name of free trade (Toxics Link, 2004) is further complicating the problems associated with waste management. The paper highlights the associated issues and strategies to address this emerging problem, in the light of initiatives in India.  

As there is no separate collection of e-waste in India, there is no clear  data on the quantity generated and disposed of each year and the resulting extent of environmental risk. The preferred practice to get rid of obsolete electronic items in India is to get them in exchange from retailers when purchasing a new item.  The business sector is estimated to account for 78% of all installed computers in India (Toxics Link, 2003). Obsolete computers from the business sector are sold by auctions. Sometimes educational institutes or charitable institutions receive old computers for reuse.  It is estimated that the total number of obsolete personal computers emanating each year from business and individual households in India will be around 1.38 million.  According to a report of Confederation of Indian Industries, the total waste generated by obsolete or broken down electronic and electrical equipment in India has been estimated to be 1,46,000 tons per year (CII, 2006).  The results of a field survey conducted in the Chennai, a metroplolitan city of India to assess the average usage and life of the personal computers  (PCs), television (TV) and mobile phone showed that the average household usage of the PC ranges from 0.39 to 1.70 depending on the income class (Shobbana Ramesh and Kurian Joseph, 2006).  In the case of TV it varied from 1.07 to 1.78 and for mobile phones it varied from 0.88 to 1.70. The low-income households use the PC for 5.94 years, TV for 8.16 years and the mobile phones for 2.34 years while, the upper income class uses the PC for 3.21 years, TV for 5.13 years and mobile phones for 1.63 years. Although the per-capita waste production in India is still relatively small, the total absolute volume of wastes generated will be huge. Further, it is growing at a faster rate.  The growth rate of the mobile phones (80%) is very high compared to  that of PC (20%) and TV (18%).  The public awareness on e-wastes and the willingness of the public to pay for e-waste management as assessed during the study based on an organized questionnaire revealed that about 50% of the public are aware of environmental and health impacts of the electronic items. The willingness of public to pay for e-waste management ranges from 3.57% to 5.92% of the product cost for PC, 3.94 % to 5.95 % for TV and 3.4 % to 5 % for the mobile phones. Additionally considerable quantities of e-waste are reported to be imported  (Agarwal, 1998; Toxics Link, 2004).  However, no confirmed figures available  on how substantial are these transboundary e-waste streams, as most of such trade in e-waste is camouflaged and conducted under the pretext of obtaining ‘reusable’ equipment or ‘donations’ from developed nations. The government trade data does not distinguish between imports of new and old computers and peripheral parts and so it is difficult to track what share of imports is used electronic goods.