Criticism of the draft WEEE legislation includes the following concerns:
1.It ignores the laws and principles already established under the Basel Convention.
2.It fails to hold producers accountable and puts the entire burden on end users.
3.It fails to deal with the larger problem of E-waste that begins with the use of toxic substances during the production process.
4.The draft legislation, if enacted in its present form, would open the floodgates to E-waste dumping in India.
"It is shocking that while the COP-8 is discussing the issue of E-waste as a priority issue, the draft WEEE legislation being circulated by our government is not only toothless, but completely lifts any responsibility on the part of electronics producers," said Ramapati Kumar, Greenpeace India Toxics Campaigner. "Rather than laying out a red carpet for E-waste dumping in India, the government should demand clean production from electronics manufacturers and ensure they phase out toxic chemicals from the production process. This draft legislation is simply a license to turn India into a garbage dump for the developed world's E-waste."
Whereas the European WEEE directive has two legs (RoHS (3) as well as waste management), the Indian draft WEEE legislation is essentially a loose directive, simply because it talks only about waste management and not clean production.
Greenpeace maintains that it is possible to make electronic equipment without the use of hazardous substances. Just recently, Indian IT giant Wipro joined global players like Dell and HP in committing to manufacture RoHS-compliant products, and China is putting its own RoHS legislation in place by March 2007.
"It is in the interest of Indian business to have a strong and comprehensive E-waste legislation in place," Ramapati added. "Our government plans to make India a future global hub for production facilities. How they'll achieve that without any meaningful regulations on clean production or waste management is beyond comprehension."
Greenpeace demands that the MoEF include clean production mechanisms such as RoHS within the draft WEEE legislation, and hold electronics manufacturers responsible for their products throughout the product life-cycle in order to protect workers and the environment from exposure to hazardous chemicals.
For further information, contact
Ramapati Kumar (Greenpeace India Toxics Campaigner) at + 91-98455-35414
The Draft WEEE Legislation is available at www.greenpeace.in/WEEELegislation.doc
Notes to Editor
1) Eighth Conference of Parties of the United Nation’s Basel Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (COP 8) in Nairobi, Kenya on 27 November – 01 December 2006. For detailed information see http://cop8.basel.int/
2) The draft WEEE notification for deliberations at the National E-Waste Legislation is being developed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, and German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). This draft is compiled by ASEM-GTZ (Advisory Services for Environment Management) for MoEF. These rules may be called the WEEE (Management and Handling) Rules, 2006 wherein WEEE is Waste from Electronic and Electrical Equipment as listed in Schedule 1.
3) RoHS, or Restriction of Hazardous Substances, is a European directive that requires the electronics industry to eliminate heavy metals like Lead, Cadmium, Chromium and Mercury from its products.