Circular economy transition and the Indian E-waste Market

最近的一份报告估计，到2022年底，全球将有超过50亿部移动的手机被丢弃，如果这些手机堆叠在一起，将进入太空（WESTERN 2022）。然而，负责任的电子废物管理的真实的障碍不是预计的巨大威胁，而是废弃的电子产品以分散和零碎的形式存在。电子废物经常进入全球价值回收回路，逃避监管，分散体积，成为有害人类健康和生态系统的有毒污染源（BAN 2002; Forti等人，2020）。然而，由于废弃的电子产品不仅有毒，而且还富含铜，金，银，铂和其他金属，因此需要大量收集电子废物以实现其作为矿山的潜力（克纳普2016）。我的人种学研究和我的著作到目前为止整合了使电子废物循环的社会经济影响和重新配置电子废物作为印度受监管的清洁资源的挑战。我的研究的新奇在于通过为期一年的实地考察，从人种学的角度研究通过实施法律的框架（生产者延伸责任或EPR）来追究污染者责任的挑战。我以EPR为例，提出以下问题。如何将污染和浪费的责任转移到生产者身上？谁应该为昂贵的物流运营和基础设施的建立和运行提供资金，而这些运营和基础设施是管理消费后电子废物所不可或缺的？把这样的经营看作是赚钱的企业，看作是机会而不仅仅是负债，这有什么矛盾呢？在我的博士学位期间，我关注了一个生产者责任组织（PRO）的工作，我称之为Sahih Kaam（印地语，意思是“正确的工作”）。我的兴趣是了解在创造环境可持续的，负责任的循环经济解决方案的电子废物回收的核心矛盾。我关注了PRO在立法框架内开拓盈利业务的斗争，旨在让生产者负责。他们被证明是一个有趣的民族志主题，因为他们不仅打算创建执行新法律的程序，而且还打算在印度的电子废物回收方式中发起部门变革。我追踪了Sahih Kaam是如何利用废品商的聚集能力从他们那里购买聚集的废物的。然而，该公司对来自负责任流通的电子废物的可行的、标准化的二次资源的追求不仅得到了支持，而且受到了非正规部门现有估值做法的破坏和挑战。本申请中详细介绍的项目的核心是一个问题：通过物、人和生态做正确的事情意味着什么？通过市场激励让所有人做好事的承诺背后隐藏着什么矛盾？不断加深的环境和气候危机，以及旨在解决这一问题的政策的稳步推出，需要进行研究，以阐明这些问题在实地的表现。这种研究不仅有助于制定更好的政策，而且还能揭示执行政策的社会背景和挑战。全球接受的扩大生产者责任政策（电子废物和塑料）的采用，体现了“污染者付费原则”，为理解向绿色过渡的挑战提供了一个特别丰富的案例研究。如果获奖，我将利用奖学金通过出版物建立跟踪记录，通过参加会议扩展专业网络，通过与利益相关者的会议扩大非学术影响，并申请新项目提案的进一步研究资金。

A recent report estimated that globally over five billion mobile phones will have been thrown away by the end of 2022, which, if stacked on top of each other, would reach into space (WEEE 2022). However, the real obstacle for responsible e-waste management is not the projected threat of magnitude but the fact that discarded electronics exist in a dispersed and piecemeal form. E-waste often enters global circuits of value recovery that escape regulations, fragmenting volumes and becoming sources of toxic pollution harming human health and ecosystems (BAN 2002; Forti et al. 2020). Yet as discarded electronics are not only toxic but also a rich depository of copper, gold, silver, platinum, and other metals, e-waste needs to be gathered in larger quantities to realise its potential as a mine (Knapp 2016). My ethnographic research and my writings to date integrate the socio-economic effects of making e-waste circular and the challenges to reconfiguring e-waste as a regulated, clean resource in India. The novelty of my research lies in examining ethnographically, through a one-year fieldwork, the challenges of holding polluters responsible by implementing legal frameworks (Extended Producer Responsibility or EPR). I take the case of EPR to ask the following questions. How to transfer the responsibility of pollution and waste to producers? Who should fund the setting up and running of costly logistical operations and infrastructures, which are indispensable for managing postconsumption e-waste? What are the contradictions of conceiving of such operations as money-making enterprises, conceived as opportunities rather than simply liabilities? In my PhD I followed the work of a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO), which I call Sahih Kaam (Hindi for "right work"). My interest was in understanding the contradictions at the heart of creating environmentally sustainable, responsible circular economy solutions to e-waste recycling. I followed the PRO's struggles to carve out a for profit business within the legislative framework that aims to hold producers responsible. They proved to be a curious ethnographic subject because they were intent not only on creating processes to implement the new law but also to initiate sectoral change in the way e-waste is recycled in India. I traced how Sahih Kaam buys up aggregated waste from scrap dealers using their aggregating capacities. However, the company's quest for viable, standardised secondary resources sourced from responsibly circulated e-waste is not only supported, but also undermined and challenged by already existing valuation practices in the informal sector. At the heart of the projects detailed in this application is the question: What does it mean to do right by things, people, and the ecology, and what are the contradictions lurking behind the promise of doing good by all through market incentives? The deepening environmental and climate crisis, and the steady rolling out of policies that are intended to solve it, requires studies that can shed light on how these play out on the ground. Such research could not only contribute to better policies but also reveal the social context of and the challenges to implementation. The introduction of the globally accepted policy of EPR (in e-waste and in plastics), which actions the "polluter pays principle," provides a particularly fertile case study to understand the challenges to a green transition. If awarded, I will use the fellowship to establish a track record through publications, extend professional networks by participating in conferences, widen non-academic impact through meetings with stakeholders, and apply for further research funding with a new project proposal.