The journey from products to waste: a pilot study on perception and discarding of electronic waste in contemporary urban India

During the recent past, electronic waste (E-waste) has emerged as a major category of toxic waste in both global North and global South. Particularly, the emerging economies such as India are a major contributor to the E-waste volume in the world today. Accordingly, we attempted to carry out this study to evaluate the journey of equipment from 'electronic products' to 'electronic waste' in the city of New Delhi in India. The purpose was to carry out an exclusive pilot study with the potential to replicate the same at a larger scale in major Indian metropolis which are mostly the hubs of intense E-waste generation. The case of mobile phones (both smartphones and feature phones) was considered as the key representative. A structured questionnaire survey was carried out with 334 purposively selected respondents in the city of New Delhi. Among several other noteworthy findings, we observed that there exists a gap among purchase behaviour of mobile phones, awareness on E-waste and disposal behaviour of these phones. For instance, the relatively high knowledge/awareness about E-waste is yet to be reflected in consumers' responsible purchase and disposal behaviour. We argue that creating awareness among citizens is central to a sustainable E-waste management system and effective policy instruments.