India Establishes New Legal Framework for E-Waste Management (Updated on Nov 2, 2022)

Updates: On November 2, 2022, India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) issued E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022. Compared with the Draft, the Rules supplemented the requirement for management of solar photo-voltaic modules or panels or cells. In addition, there are several adjustments in Schedule III and a Schedule V is added to specify authorities and corresponding duties. The Rules comes into force on April 1, 2023. 

On May 19, 2022, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India issued the Draft E-waste (Management) Rules (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) to solicit public comments until July 18, 2022. Once adopted, the Rules, which proposes a new legal framework for channeling electronic waste generated in the country to the formal e-waste recycling sector, will replace the E-Waste (Management) Rules (2016) and E-Waste (Management) Amendment Rules (2018). It is still unclear when the Rules will take effect.

The Rules consists of 32 clauses and 3 schedules, and specifies responsibilities of each stakeholder (e.g., producer, manufacturer, recycler, Central Pollution Control Board, etc.), procedures for storage of e-waste, generation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) certificate, provisions for hazardous substances reduction, etc. Compared with the previous versions, the Rules introduce a system of tradeable certificates similar to the internationally traded carbon credits, and optimize the standards for companies to recycle electronic waste. Notably, the content of Producer Responsibility Organization has been deleted in the Rules. Below are major updates of the Rules.

EPR Framework

*The Rules define Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as “responsibility of any producer of electrical or electronic equipment, for meeting recycling targets only through registered recycler of e-waste as given in the schedules of these rules to ensure environmentally sound management of such waste”.

Entities to be covered under the EPR framework include:

• Manufacturer (*A person or an entity or a company, which has facilities for manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment as specified in Schedule I.)

• Producer (*Any person who, (i) manufactures and offers to sell electrical and electronic equipment and their components or consumables or parts or spares under its own brand; or (ii) offers to sell under its own brand, assembled electrical and electronic equipment and their components or consumables or parts or spares produced by other manufacturers or suppliers; or (iii) offers to sell imported electrical and electronic equipment and their components or consumables or parts or spares; and ant person who imports used electrical and electronic equipment.)

• Recycler (*Any person who is engaged in recycling and reprocessing of waste electrical and electronic equipment, assemblies or their components or parts for recovery of precious, semi-precious metals including rare earth elements and other useful recoverable materials to strengthen the secondary sourced materials, and any person who has facilities as elaborated in the guidelines of Central Pollution Control Board.)

• Refurbisher (*The entity repairing used electrical and electronic equipment as listed in Schedule I for extending its working life over its originally intended life, and for same use as originally intended, and selling the same in the market.)

The entities above shall register on the centralized portal of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), and they cannot carry out any business without registration. A registration fee and annual maintenance fee will be charged based on the capacity of e-waste generated/recycled/handled by the applicants. 

The registration will be revoked by CPCB for a period up to 3 years if any registered entities provide false information or willfully conceal information for getting the registration or in case of any irregularity. Furthermore, violation of the regulations for three times or more will also result in permanent revocation of registration except for the environmental compensation (EC) charges.

EPR Certificate Trading

Each EPR certificate will get a unique number containing the year of issuance, code of end product, recycler code and a unique code. The EPR certificates will be in the denominations of 100kg, 200kg, 500kg and 1000 kg or as may be prescribed by CPCB with the approval of Steering Committee. The validity of the EPR certificate will be 2 years from the end of the financial year in which it is issued.

An entity can purchase EPR certificates limited to its EPR liability of current year plus any leftover liability of preceding years plus 10% of the current year liability. Once the entity purchases EPR certificate, it will be automatically adjusted against its liability, and the priority will be given to the previous liability.

According to Clause 20 of the Rules, entities shall record such transactions on the CPCB online portal at the time of filling quarterly returns, and the availability, requirement and other details of the EPR certificate for every manufacturer/producer/ recycler/refurbisher will be made available on the portal.

Payment/Refund of EC Charges

If the entities do not fulfill the EPR liability set out in the certificate, EC charges must be paid. However, such payment will not absolve the corresponding liability. The unfulfilled EPR liability for a particular year will be carried forward to the next year and so on and up to 3 years. If the shortfall of EPR liability is addressed within 1-3 years, partial of the EC charges levied will be returned to entities. More specifically:

EPR Targets - Schedule III & Schedule III(A)

All relevant enterprises shall have to fulfill EPR liability as per Schedule III & Schedule III(A).

The EPR liability for each product will be decided on the basis of the information provided by Producers on the online portal and the individual product’s life period as prescribed by CPCB and the rates prescribed in Schedule III.

*Schedule III - EPR Targets for entities who have EPR Plan under E-Waste (Management) Rules (2016)

Note: The importers of used electrical and electronic equipment will have 100% EPR liability for the imported material after end of life, if not re-exported.

EPR Targets for entities, which have started sales operations recently, i.e. number of years of sales operations is less than the average life of their products mentioned in the guidelines issued by the Central Pollution Control Board from time to time.

*Schedule III(A) - EPR Targets for entities who have started sales operations of target products

Note: Once the number of years of sales operation equals the average life of their product mentioned in the guidelines issued by CPCB, their EPR liability shall be as per Schedule III.

Targets Products

Specific target products are listed Schedule I attached to the Rules. See the table below for new categories of electrical and electronic equipment to be covered under the Rules. 

Click here to download the official document (both in Indian and English).