'Goa doesn't have a e-waste recycle facility'

Goa does not have a facility to recycle e-waste and haphazard disposal of e-waste could result in landfill site contamination, a top official of an IT manufacturers organisation said on Wedenesday.

At a workshop here on environmental hazards of of e-waste, New Delhi-based Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT) Executive Director Anwar Shirpurwala said that in absence of an e-waste processing facility, there was a need to encourage users to return their own computer systems, possibly on a buy-back basis.

"E-waste management in the state of Goa as well as in other states across India is a highly fragmented business. Furthermore, Goa does not have any recycling facility to deal with e-waste and most of times non-functional computer scrap parts or e-waste is disposed with municipal solid waste by scrap dealers which increases the risk of landfill site contamination," he told reporters.

"There is a need to introduce buy back system where customers would be imparted with knowledge on e-waste issue and encouraged to give back their obsolete PCs. This system would collect large amount of obsolete PCs and improve existing informal collection system," he added.

At the workshop, which was attended by representatives of the IT industry, the Goa State Pollution Control Board, and the state Information and Technology Department, among others, MAIT recommended that scrap dealers should be imparted with formal training about how to handle e-waste, improving the existing e-waste collection system, segregation of e-waste, etc.A

--IANS

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