Tough new waste management rules in India will eventually choke off informal lead battery recycling, according to the head of India Lead Zinc Development Association (ILZDA).
L Pugazhenthy, known as Pug, told BEST the battery waste management rules implemented some 18 months ago are working. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is now taking effect, he said. “So that is a new experiment for India,” he said. “You have to wait and see how this going to work.”
EPR places responsibility on manufacturers to ensure safe collection, safe storage, safe transport, safe recycling, occupational healthcare precautions in lead smelting or lead recycling, he noted. “So the manufacturer is more accountable and more responsible for all these activities.”
Pug said the scheme works a bit like Europe’s battery passport idea, though is not as detailed. He thinks this may come later. Companies have to submit annual returns, annual reports are monitored by the authorities, and changes are enforced.
He said EPR provision may arrive in other Asian countries too, also copying the European model. “And that’s a good sign,” he said. “Rather than imposing regulations, you make the producer responsible, accountable and fix the responsibility on him. And if he fails, there will be a penalty.”
Informal recycling has receded in the face of this new regulatory regime, he said, but he believes it still accounts for some 20% or so of all recycling.
“But more or less everybody now – all the regulatory bodies in various provinces and states of India – they’re insisting on this formal green recycling and safe recycling. So more or less that supply chain for the informal sector has been choked. The producer collects, gives it to authorised recyclers, buys lead from them for new batteries. So some kind of circular economy there. And that’s a good sign.”
He added the government of prime minister Shri Narendra Modi is very focused on wiping out the informal sector everywhere.
Photo: Tough new waste management rules in India will eventually choke off informal lead battery recycling, according to ILZDA
