Segregating dreams from scrap

India's E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, was designed to tighten controls, making producers more responsible through extended producer responsibility. But the system still falls short

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

In the winding, congested alleyways of New Seelampur, a 500-foot stretch tucked deep inside east Delhi, life hums with the quiet rustle of wires, metal scraps, and fraying hopes.

Every household here seems tied to the business of e-waste -- a world where old computers, phones, fridges, and their innards are torn down, stripped, sorted, and sold.

But the story is no longer what it once was.

As India's e-waste policy evolves and the gaze of enforcement agencies intensifies, the epicentre of one of the world's largest informal e-waste markets has quietly dispersed, not collapsed, but fragmented and slipped into the shadows.

The business hasn't ended, it has just moved -- to Loni, Muradabad, Meerut and smaller towns where it thrives away from the eyes of the regulators, the media, and digital scrutiny.

"The volumes have not really reduced. The business is still alive, but just not visible in Delhi anymore," says Vinod, programme officer at Toxics Link, an environmental NGO.