Segregating Dreams from Scrap: Seelampur's e-waste economy moves to shadows but doesn't stop

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.

- UZMI ATHAR

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.

“Two things are happening -- the market is moving out, and formal recyclers are taking some share, but the informal chain still dominates,” he adds.

During a recent visit to the New Seelampur slum, PTI witnessed how this once-bustling hub has morphed into a quieter but deeply embedded network.

As the reporter walked through the slum's narrow lanes, nearly every doorway opened into a home where families were engaged in e-waste segregation.

In a dimly-lit 6x6 feet room, 50-year-old Saleema sat hunched over a knee-high mound of cables. Her fingers, bent with arthritis, sort wires from morning to night, guided only by a low-watt bulb dangling from the tin roof.

For 10 kg of wires, she earns Rs 50 -- slightly more if she finds slivers of copper.

A single mother her alcoholic husband vanished into irrelevance years ago ~ Saleema supports her three children.

Her eldest son has been lodged in Tihar Jail for over a year on theft charges, still awaiting trial.

“I have been doing this for over 30 years. This is the only life I've known,” she says.