MeitY Inaugurates PCB Recycling facility at C-MET
Article By : PIB India
A circular economy approach towards e-waste management will play an important role in resource efficiency, reduction in pollution, recovery of precious materials and minimization of health hazards.
Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), recently inaugurated a 1 ton/day PCB Recycling facility at the Center for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), in Hyderabad.
Sharma mentioned that a circular economy approach towards e-waste management will play an important role in resource efficiency, reduction in pollution, recovery of precious materials and minimization of health hazards. He said that MeitY has introduced the SPECS scheme for helping e-waste recycling industries to set up their plant in India instead of sending the e-waste materials outside for recycling. He also said that the indigenously developed e-waste recycling technologies will give a fillip to India’s Mission to Atmanirbharata and circular economy.
MeitY Secretary Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma inaugurating the PCB recycling facility.
C-MET is an autonomous scientific society under MeitY. Its R&D laboratories in Hyderabad, Pune, and Thrissur focus on different thrust areas on critical electronic materials. The Hyderabad lab is focused on the development of high purity, semiconductors and strategic materials including metals and alloys.
One of the major thrust areas of C-MET Hyderabad is to develop environmentally benign e-waste recycling technologies to promote resource efficiency and circular economy in the country. India generates around 3.2 million tons per year of electronic waste which contains many precious materials like Gold, Palladium, Silver etc. in addition to hazardous materials which can cause irreparable health hazards to human being. In this context, development of environmentally benign process to address those issues are of paramount importance.
C-MET has established a Center of Excellence (CoE) on E-waste Management, a first of its kind in the country under a PPP model. CoE on E-waste management has developed all varieties of e-waste recycling technologies viz. spent PCB, Li-ion battery, permanent magnet and Si-solar cells, to name a few. The PCB recycling technology developed by CoE is at Technology Readiness Level 6 stage and now ready for commercialization. C-MET has not only developed recycling technologies but also designed and fabricated necessary processing equipment for the same.