INVC NEWS
New Delhi,
Blue Planet Environmental Solutions Pte. Ltd. (“Blue Planet”), a Singapore headquartered integrated waste management company, announced today the strategic acquisition of British electronic waste (e-waste) the technology company, Smart Creative Technologies Ltd. (“Smart Creative”), which is an established player in the UK for almost a decade.
With this acquisition, Blue Planet has expanded its technological capability and will be able to provide a sustainable solution to handle e-waste, which is currently the fastest growing waste stream in the world.
“E-waste is increasingly becoming a challenge and an opportunity in the region. Policymakers, industry leaders and consumers are paying more attention to the current low-rates of recycling in Asia. They are looking for safe and sustainable processing technologies to ensure high resource recovery and safety for all those engaged,” said Prashant Singh, Chief Executive Officer of Blue Planet.
Asia’s growing economies currently generate 40 per cent of e-waste in the world — and only 15 per cent of the region’s e-waste is collected and recycled. This is often handled by the informal sector which treats the e-waste using outdatedmethods that release toxic chemicals that cause widespread damage to human health and the environment.
Singh added, “E-waste in the region is commonly handled by informal workers without the necessary health, safety and environmental precautions and this has had profound impacts on their quality of life.
“This is true especially for countries like India and Bangladesh, where a network of informal workers and waste pickers — including women and children — collect, dismantle and recycle e-waste under miserable and unsafe work conditions.”
Beyond social and environmental benefits, proper e-waste recycling solutions are important because they enable a high rate of material recovery, which reduces the demand for further mining of heavy metals — a highly environmentally-damaging process — and therefore decreases carbon emissions caused by manufacturing using virgin materials.
