02-10-2009 Greenpeace India: Philips 'strongly resisting' individual responsibility for e-waste problem

Excerpt from a IPS news report;

India’s lack of safe electronic waste-disposal is growing to a crisis situation, needing strong laws to control the situation, say experts.

The country’s e-waste generation is expected to grow from a current annual 380,000 tonnes to a million tonnes by 2012.

"These figures account for only televisions, mobile phones and computers; there is an entire spectrum of unaccounted-for e-waste that is going into the unorganized sector in India, causing health and environmental problems," says Ramapati Kumar, Greenpeace campaign manager for toxic wastes in India.

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The global organisation’s ‘green ranking index’ for the electronics industry, monitored quarterly, put electronics giant Nokia in first place for going ‘green’ and ‘PVC free’.

"The company previously had ‘double standards’ on its take-back policy where the system worked elsewhere but not in India. But since our ranking guide and our campaign, Nokia now has the largest collection centre for its discarded products in India which they recycle", says Kumar.

Indian IT giants Infosys and Wipro are equally aware, while Dutch multinational Philips is ‘strongly resisting’ individual responsibilities, says Greenpeace.