General information, not legal advice. E-waste rules and CPCB procedures are updated periodically — confirm the current requirements for your business with CPCB or a qualified consultant.
What changed in 2022
India's E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 (notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and in force from 1 April 2023) replaced the earlier 2016 framework. The headline shift was a move to a centralised, online Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system administered through the CPCB portal, with registration and EPR targets for producers.
If your business makes, imports, brands, sells or simply uses electronics at scale, some part of this framework applies to you.
Who is covered
The rules define several roles. The two most businesses fall into are:
- Producers / manufacturers / importers / brand owners — companies that put electronic products on the market. These entities carry EPR obligations: register on the CPCB EPR portal and meet collection/recycling targets for the products they sell, evidenced through the portal.
- Bulk consumers — offices, banks, IT companies, institutions and government bodies that use a large number of electronic devices. Bulk consumers are expected to hand end-of-life equipment to authorised recyclers or refurbishers and to maintain records of the e-waste they generate and transfer.
There are also roles for authorised recyclers, refurbishers and manufacturers of specific components.
What Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) actually means
EPR makes the producer responsible for their products after the consumer is done with them. In practice, an obligated producer must register on the CPCB EPR portal, meet annual EPR targets (a percentage of what they placed on the market must be collected and channelled to authorised recyclers), and document fulfilment.
Many producers meet these targets by working with authorised recyclers who handle the collection, processing and paperwork on their behalf. How we handle EPR →
What bulk consumers need to do
If you're an office or institution (not a producer), your obligations are practical:
- Don't dispose informally. Route end-of-life IT to a CPCB-authorised recycler — not a local scrap dealer.
- Keep records of what you generated and where it went.
- Get certificates — a recycling certificate for the disposal, and (for data-bearing devices) a Certificate of Data Destruction.
- Retain the transfer documentation (the manifest and records your recycler completes for each consignment) so you can evidence compliant channelling.
Why it's worth doing properly
Beyond avoiding penalties for non-compliance, treating e-waste correctly gives you audit-ready records, ESG reporting data (recovered material weights and CO₂-avoided figures that feed straight into sustainability disclosures), and reputational protection — no association with informal, unsafe or polluting disposal.
Batteries have their own rules
If you dispose of UPS systems, laptop batteries or lead-acid batteries, note that battery waste is governed separately (the Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022). An authorised partner can handle both streams together. What we accept →
The bottom line
Whether you're a producer with EPR targets or an office retiring old IT, the compliant path is the same at its core: use a CPCB-authorised recycler, keep the certificates, and retain the transfer records. That's what makes your disposal legal, auditable, and safe.