The ‘3R’ – ‘reduce, recycle and re-use,’ of electronic and electrical waste – commitment came at the end of a talk, ‘WEEE (Waste from Electronic and Electrical Equipment) Care’ .

The participating firms are “now voluntarily committed to setting up a eco-friendly, viable and socially acceptable WEEE management system, and a nodal agency shortly.

According to HAWA, Chief Environmental Advisor, P. Bineesha, an informal nodal agency will be in place by then if not a formal structure.

For now, ‘WEEE Care’ is focusing on four kinds of e-waste – computers, cell phones, television sets and refrigerators.  The state’s 1,322 IT firms and 36 hardware manufacturers, account for most of the e-waste from computers.  According to Wilma Rodrigues from Saahas who surveyed e-waste recycles, the raw material has three sources:  the firms, custom-bonded equipment and manufacturing rejects.

When IT firms import computers, they must store or destroy obsolete ones.  But even then, parts go to scrap dealers.  This happens even when computers are donated.

Bineesha, on her part, stresses: “IT industry must recognize the role of the informal sector and talk to the government, the public and the scrap traders to make e-waste recycling part of their business promotion.

The firms were represented by NASSCOM and MAIT (Manufacturers’ Association of IT) as well as some individual IT companies and the government (represented by D.C. Sharma, Zonal Officer, Southern Region, Central Pollution Control Board, members of Hazardous Waste Management (HAWA) Project of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board or KSPCB)

Bob Hoekstra, Chief Executive Officer of Philips insisted that a system must be in place first.  “The IT firms must unite, for a workable system and the government must set out the rules of the game.”  Jobs must be created, not destroyed, here, he said.