Seelampur in the north eastern fringe of Delhi receives electronic waste from across north India. More than 400,000 tonnes of e-waste is generated in India every year of which 90 percent ends up in the unorganized market.
 
Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

15-year-old Shanu extracts copper from dismantled UPS fans in Shastri Park, Delhi. The copper sells for Rs 330 per kg fetching his employer handsome returns on a good day when as much as 10 kilograms can be extracted. Shanu, however never earns beyond Rs 200 a day.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

If the electric and computer wires are in good condition a knife is used to extract copper. Otherwise, they are burnt; burning PVC in the plastic releases hazardous dioxins. New Seelampur, Delhi.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

According to traders in electronic scrap it is most profitable to recycle circuit boards. Computer motherboards sell for Rs 230 a kg from which copper and gold are extracted. The extraction is hazardous and is done in small towns like Moradabad, barely 150 kilometers from Delhi. In the photograph, circuit boards are washed in the Ramganga river in Moradabad after extraction of copper and gold. After the final wash in this tributary of the holy Ganges the boards will be sold to plastic recyclers for Rs 2 per kg.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

With the government regulations set to target informal units for their risky and polluting ways, thousands await an uncertain future. Informal scrap dealers unit, Shastri Park, Delhi.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

Formal recyclers like Attero’s Nitin Gupta complain about the polluting and hazardous nature of informal recycling units. Attero in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, was the first recycler in the country to be allowed to import and to use chemical processes to extract precious metals from motherboards. But in the face of unused capacity, the company rampantly sells old computers to informal traders from Moradabad, Down To Earth, found.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

Auctions are regularly held across the country to dispose scrap by the private companies and government departments.  Impending government regulations, though, will bar informal scrap dealers from participating in such auctions. At an auction by the Department of Ayurveda, Government of India, parliament street, Delhi.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

Under a blazing summer sun, gas torches help remove metal parts from circuit boards.  Working under hazardous conditions a typical laborer earns not more than Rs 100 a day. Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth
 

Recycling motherboards is like a cottage industry in Moradabad, UP. A family of four typically earns Rs. 300 per day plus the attendant health hazards. For example, the mercury released can harm infants through the mother’s milk.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth

The unorganized circuit board processing units in Moradabad, UP, employs children between the ages of eight to fifteen. Traders estimate that about half of all circuit boards used in electrical appliances end up in Moradabad, once famed as the petal nagri or the brass city.

Photographs by - Sayantan Bera/Down To Earth