In India, the quantity of electronic waste (e-waste) is burgeoning year-on-year as we progress towards the digitalisation of the country. Disposal of e-waste is an emerging global environmental and public health concern, for this type of waste has become a very common constituent of municipal solid waste in the world. According to a report by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India generated 771,251 tonnes of e-waste in 2017-18, whereas only 10 percent of it was collected for further process or disposal. Most of the e-waste is stored at home as citizens are uninformed of the ways to deal with it. Further, “In 2019-20, the figure rose 32 per cent to 1,014,961” tonnes (downtoearth.org.in). The pie chart below depicts state-wise e-waste generation in terms of percentage.
Source: Electronic Waste and India (Dr. S. Chatterjee)
Efforts towards the safe disposal of e-waste are being made by Mr. Kuldeep Singh, who is a neophyte entrepreneur and the founder of Kabadi Techno, whose “vision is to make environment eco-friendly.” He started his journey in 2015 when he participated for the first time in a junkyard competition; it was a sort of best out of waste competition. He later participated three times and secured the first position twice and the second position once. He also participated in the ‘model-o-zone’ competition, wherein he developed an air purifier from used cigarette buds and old CPU fans. He had researched in the waste management area for three years and subsequently, got an opportunity to indulge in the business of waste management. Therefore, he took a step forward and registered his company on 26th April 2018. Later on, his company was recognised by ‘Start-up India’, a scheme by the Government of India aiming for employment generation and wealth creation.
Mr. Singh wrote his first research paper in his college days for waste management on “Integrated Online Framework for Waste Management”, which was published in an IEEE journal. His second research paper, which he published in an Elsevier journal, was “IoT based Collection Vendor Machine (CVM)” for e-waste management; he researched and developed a disposal machine for e-waste. For this, customers (users) will have to register with the proposed system to obtain a QR code which consists of all necessary information identifying the customers. The customer will attach this QR code on her e-waste items and dump it in the CVM themselves or allow a pickup man to collect and dispose it free of costs. The CVM works on a highly tracked and secured system for processing e-waste giving an option to a ’kabadiwala’, who is unaware of the proper disposal method of toxic e-waste. Mr. Singh filed a provisional patent on IoT-based CVM in June 2020.
In an interview, he explained that a user can provide her location by online registration and their pickup man will reach her doorstep. The user gets adequately paid by the company in exchange for their e-waste. They provide time-saving processing for the user waiting to sell their waste, which occupies considerable space at home, school, office, etc. Moreover, he added that the wastes, especially electronic wastes, should not be stored at a particular place; rather they should be disposed soon after them getting obsolete. Hence, Kabadi Techno facilitates the owners of electronic gadgets to dispose the same under the E-waste Management Rules set up by the Government of India.
Mr. Singh and his team members provide internship and training opportunities to more than 30 students who are inspired by the work of the company. However, being a start-up company, all the interns are unpaid and the revenue generated is invested in the upcoming projects of the company. The exponentially increasing amount of e-waste associated with the lack of awareness and appropriate skills is leading to severe environmental problems in India. The major contribution that the company is giving to society is spreading awareness regarding how and when to dispose the electronic wastes, which ultimately increases systematic disposal of e-waste. Thus, it is opined that e-waste management is the emerging segment of waste management for our country and various measures for research and innovation in the current technology are being implemented by the Kabadi Techno to minimize the environmental pollution generated by electronic gadgets.
Authored by: Saksham Singh
Edited by: Keval Vyas