GREENE – An E-Waste Awareness Initiative – 2015 – IMPRI Impact And Policy Research Institute

Policy Update
Nomula Pranay Goud

Introduction:

GREENE is a campaign across India that was started under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) in association with the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT) to create awareness among people, industry participants, and the youth on the aspect of e-waste responsible disposal and sustainable recycling. GREENE has achieved grassroots level awareness and promotion of sound environmental management of e-waste through community outreach, workshops, youth summits, collection drives and corporate partnerships. As electronic consumption is increasing rapidly, there is an emerging e-waste crisis in India that needs immediate attention in the form of public awareness and sustainable disposal methods.

 Source: eWaste https://greene.gov.in/

The effort officially materialized in 2021, and its uppermost goal is:

• Overcoming the informational gap between the consumers in the relation to the safe utilization and recycling of the electric waste.
• Promoting stakeholder responsibility, in particular of producers and corporate individuals as well as the young people.
• Ensuring the local communities are empowered to engage in the activities of e-waste collection, dismantling in a regulated and safe way.

Functioning:

The operations of GREENE are centered on multi-stakeholder and awareness-based approach and they are organized in the following way:

1. Awareness Campaigns: Holds seminars, workshops, webinars and multimedia outreach (including regional languages) in schools, colleges, residential societies and in open forums to inform people on the dangers of e-waste and how to dispose of them safely.

2. Collection Drives: collection drives are events which are organized in cooperation with local authorities, corporates, and reverse logistics providers to allow citizens to safely and legally dispose of their e-waste.

3. Stakeholder Integration: Collaborates with central/state pollution control boards, NGOs, recyclers and producers to achieve end to end connectivity between awareness, collection and environmentally sound recycling.

4. Monitoring & Reporting: Keeps track of outreach performance and facilitates the impact evaluation to optimize the approach and align the activity with the national policies regarding e-waste management and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Performance:

1. Awareness and outreach – Major Events Organized:

• Dec 2022- Online webinar on implications and challenges of waste management by MeitY, MAIT, CPCB, and NGOs. 
• Jan 2024 – Youth Eco Summit brought on board more than 1,800 students representatives of 100+ schools in Delhi/NCR. 
• Feb 2024 – E-waste awareness and collection campaign at MeitY Headquarters, New Delhi.
• Nov 2024 -Dec 2024-  I am Circular challenge to raise awareness of the circular economy. 

2. Champion Development Stakeholder Engagement:

• Establishment of the GreenE champions in each of the 31 states/UTs to pursue local e-waste awareness. 
• Excellent tie-ups established with industry (through MAIT, NASSCOM), CPCB, SPCBs and NGOs such as TERI and Bajaj Foundation. 

3. Impacts of Collection & Recycling:

• Regular collection drives in cities such as Noida, Jammu, Moradabad and New Delhi starting mid-2021, and regular annual events until 2024 
• The official recycling rate of e-waste in India improved, ranging at about 26 percent in 2020-21 and 32.9 percent in 202122 
• The recycling coverage had achieved approximately 43 percent by 2023-24, as the formal processing capacity increased.

4. The Development of Infrastructure & Policy:

• Growth in formal recycling infrastructure: 322 recyclers and 72 refurbishers registered with CPCB by Feb 2025 with a total processing capacity of more than 2.2 million tonnes per annum. 
• Incorporation with the amended E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, that enable channelization of formal sector, EPR implementation, and periodical monitoring.

Impact of GREENE:

Having been initiated under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the GREENE initiative has had a quantifiable influence on the Indian e-waste ecosystem in a number of crucial aspects over the recent years. It has been successful in raising mass awareness, enhancing stakeholder engagement, and promoting e-waste disposal environmentally friendly behaviours.

 1. Greater Community Education

• Events such as the Youth Eco Summits or the recently held “I Am Circular” event reached out to and engaged over 1.800 students in 2024 alone, across over 100 schools.
• Trained and made “GreenE Champions” across all states/UTs of India, who are the local e-waste awareness ambassadors.

 2. Increase in Formal E-Waste Collection

• Collection drives in cities such as Delhi, Gurugram, Jammu, and Moradabad, grounded by GREENE-, resulted in higher involvement of consumers in legal e-waste disposal.
• Contributed to an increment in the formal recycling rate of e-waste in India:

Reduced by ~26% in 2020-21, down to ~33% in 2021-22, to ~43% in 2023-24 (according to CPCB data)

Source: Flowcharts https://blog.mywastesolution.com/start-an-e-waste-recycling-business-a-practical-guide/

 3. Participation Corporate & Institutional

• Partnered with companies such as DLF, JLL, Bajaj Foundation, RLG India among others to create awareness and collection drives at the workplace and communities.
• Promoted Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) achievement and environmental responsibility in the electronic manufacturers.

 4. Enhancing the Infrastructure of Recycling.

• Helped in the increase in the number of registered formal recyclers with CPCB:
• In 2024, there will be 322+ recyclers having a combined annual capacity of more than 2.2 million tonnes.
• Facilitated the enforcement of E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, by aligning the participation of citizens with government rules.

 5. Environmental Social Benefits

• Decline in the dumping of toxic e-wastes, hence the reduced risks of soil, air, and water pollution.
• Practices of a promoted circular economy, refurbishing devices and giving them a new life instead of disposing of them.
• Motivated young people and the local communities and brought up a generation that is more conscious of environmental issues.

Emerging issues: 

1. Poor Penetration to Rural and Tier-II/Tier-III locations

• The awareness drives and collection programs initiated by GREENE have so far been focused mostly in the urban areas such as Delhi, Gurugram, and Noida.
• The rural and semi-urban residents are either unaware of the e-waste menace or have no formal collection spots.

 2. Pre-eminence of the Informal Sector

• Over 50% of the Indian e-wastes continue to be recycled by informal recyclers in unsafe ways (open burning, acid leaching).
• This huge informal workforce has not been completely incorporated and formalized into the regulated ecosystem by campaigns of GREENE.

 3. This absence of Quantitative Impact Measurement

• There is little information regarding the amount of e-waste actually collected, recycled, or kept out of the landfills as a result of the programs offered through GREENE although the outreach events are widely publicized.
• This impacts on feedback of policy, monitoring and strategic planning.

 4. Stakeholder coordination Gaps

• Although it involves MeitY, MAIT, and CPCB, it has operational disconnects among various levels of government, NGOs, recyclers, and collection partners.
• Poor uniformity among states lowers national coherence.

5. Weak Consumer Motivators: The citizens are not often motivated to dispose their electronics responsibly because of

• Lack of economic incentive and reward system
• Poor access to licensed collection sites
• GREENE currently lacks a buy-back or cashback mechanism on a national level, which halts behavior change.

Way forward: 

1. Enforce Public-Private Partnerships – 

• Enhance organized partnerships between government, private electronics companies, formal recyclers, NGOs and urban local bodies (ULBs).
• Implement shared investment guidelines on e-waste collectors, transportation, and recycling networks along the lines of CSR or green financing.

2. Co-develop infrastructure with tech companies, recyclers, NGOs, and urban local bodies and increase the outreach –

• In cooperation with tech firms and recycling startups, you should put up E-waste aggregation hubs,Smart drop-off kiosks and Mobile collection units in the countryside.
• ULBs and panchayats should be made empowered to work as localized collectors and awareness creates.

3. Add e-waste and circular economy concepts to school and college programs –

• Incorporate practices of e-waste treatment and the circle economy in the school, college and vocational training in India.
• Organize classes, challenges with environmentally attentive business creation and internships at official recycling organizations and ecological businesses.

4. Come up with a Centralized E-Waste Monitoring System – 

• Develop a digital platform or public dashboard, which records real-time data on:The amounts of e-waste collected, The sites of formal recyclers, Awareness program coverage, EPR implementation on part of producers and dismantlers.

References:

About the Contributor: Nomula Pranay Goud, Masters student in International Relations at Manipal University, Jaipur and a Research intern at Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI)

Acknowlegement: The author sincerely thanks Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja and the IMPRI team for their valuable support.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.

Read more at IMPRI

Empowering India’s Electronics Supply Chain: The Role of SPECS, 2020

Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra: India’s Premier Diaspora Engagement Hub