Rapid advances in electronics and telecommunications technologies have contributed significantly to making e-waste one of the largest and fastest-growing solid waste streams. India produces over 3.23 million tonnes of e-waste each year. Over 90% of the total e-waste generated in the country is processed by the informal waste management sector. Informal waste collectors in India are known as ‘kabadiwalas’. Many people in India employ their services to discard household solid waste items, including e-waste. However, the percentage of people disposing of their e-waste to kabadiwalas is unknown. Moreover, detailed research studies on kabadiwalas’ waste collection activities are very limited to date. A case study was therefore formulated to determine the likelihood of e-waste disposal to kabadiwalas and their solid waste collection strategies, including e-waste fraction. A global positioning system (GPS) based real-time waste collection route tracking method was employed. The results indicated that many people in India (∼45% of survey respondents) prefer to dispose of their e-waste to kabadiwalas. Based on the GPS tracking results, the informal waste collectors were found to travel considerable distances using manual and modified three-wheeler vehicles (20–30 km per day) to collect household waste, out of which e-waste accounted for about 10%. It was deduced that their large workforce and low operating costs enable them to collect e-waste from households all over the country effectively. The results from this study indicate that kabadiwalas play an integral role in the e-waste management system of India and that their integration into the existing formal e-waste industry could help establish improved e-waste management and value recovery operations in India.

电子和电信技术的快速进步极大地促进了电子垃圾成为最大和增长最快的固体废物流之一。印度每年产生超过 323 万吨电子垃圾。该国产生的电子废物总量的 90% 以上由非正规废物管理部门处理。在印度，非正式的垃圾收集者被称为“kabadiwalas”。许多印度人使用他们的服务来丢弃家庭固体垃圾，包括电子垃圾。然而，将电子垃圾丢弃到 kabadiwalas 的人所占的百分比是未知的。此外，迄今为止，对 kabadiwalas 垃圾收集活动的详细研究非常有限。因此，制定了一项案例研究，以确定将电子废物处置给 kabadiwalas 的可能性及其固体废物收集策略，包括电子垃圾部分。采用基于全球定位系统 (GPS) 的实时垃圾收集路线跟踪方法。结果表明，许多印度人（约 45% 的调查受访者）更愿意将电子垃圾丢弃到 kabadiwalas。根据 GPS 跟踪结果，发现非正规垃圾收集者使用手动和改装的三轮车（每天 20-30 公里）长途跋涉收集生活垃圾，其中电子垃圾约占 10%。据推断，他们庞大的劳动力和低廉的运营成本使他们能够有效地收集全国各地家庭的电子垃圾。