The police commissioner’s office in Delhi, the Supreme Court, and the High Court will soon have e-waste bins to dispose of their electronic waste. “We will have e-waste disposal bins in 50 more government buildings starting next week,” an official from the environment department in Delhi told Governance Now.

Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister of Delhi had distributed 16 such e-waste bins to NDMC and some schools in April. “Some schools have responded very enthusiastically to this programme. We have been able to collect a lot of e-waste,” the official said. He said that setting up of these bins was a big help in generating awareness about e-waste.

Some of the other buildings where these e-waste bins will be setup are Vikas Minar, Vikas Bhavan and Vikas Sadan.

Dikshit had said that e-waste was a big problem in order to address it the Delhi government had decided to develop a systematic mechanism to collect e-waste. The Delhi government has tied up with three authorised e-waste recyclers who pick up the waste regularly and dispose it.

The official said that though it is only the companies approved by the Central Pollution Control Board which are collecting the waste from these bins, but the government is trying to bring the informal sector on board through these authorized recycling companies. “We are trying to have a co-operation between the informal and formal sector through Manufacturer’s Association for Information technology,” he said.