Producer Responsible Organisation: A Guiding Principles For EEE Producers

Abstract

Purpose: In an attempt to reduce, reuse and recycle of end-of-life equipment there is a paradigm shift to circular economy from linear economy. The polluter-pays principle (PPP’) is one of those attempt in manage WEEE in an environment friendly manner by the producers. The Extended Producer Responsibility held accountable producers of electrical and electronic equipment for environmental impact on life-cycle impact of
the products. Producer Responsible Organisation (PRO) are professional organization which can take the responsibility of collection and channelization of e-waste generated from end-of-life equipment to ensure environmentally sound management of WEEE. They are financed individually or collectively by the producers to meet their EPR targets. PRO setup collection centres and ensures traceability of WEEE in accordance
with the guidelines issued by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). They act as specialized compliance service providers which organize e-waste management on behalf of producers in line with legal targets. the purpose of this study is To investigate the effectiveness of PROs in managing WEEE and to examines the role of PRO in
meeting collection targets set by CPCB. 

Design/Methodology/Approach: A List of PRO was retrieved from the website of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCP) from the link (https://cpcb.nic.in/e-waste/). 50 Producers Responsible Organisation were contacted through scheduled interview and information was ascertained. To achieve the objective of the study questionnaire were prepared, complied, and pre-tested. The questionnaire was classified into three
sections and responses were recorded accordingly. Convenience sampling technique applied as the population elements are purposely selected based on the convenience of the researcher. To examine the significance of effectiveness of PRO in collection of e-waste simple regression analysis technique has been employed.

Findings: The paper aims to examine the role of PRO in effective managing WEEE and meeting collection targets set by CPCB. The simple regression analysis revealed that result reveals that there is a significant relation between effective of PRO in managing e-waste and number of years of expertise of PRO. The higher the years of expertise of the PRO higher is the effective of PRO in collection and meeting targets of EPR. Thus, the initiative taken by the CPCB by authorising PRO in successfully managing of WEEE is a positive step.

Originality/Value: This paper is a descriptive study attempting to investigate the efficacy of PRO in managing WEEE. Further, it attempts to gauge leverage of partnership between formal-informal sectors in e-waste management. It would enable to understand the bottleneck in e-waste management and provide solutions for its effective management.

Paper Type: Empirical Research Paper