The Alchemy of Green Markets: Materiality, ethics, and value transformations in Delhi’s e-waste recycling industry

Abstract

Drawing on a year-long fieldwork in Delhi's e-waste sector, my thesis follows the struggles to formalise e-waste recycling in India. I approached the issue of responsible e-waste recycling by exploring the after-effects of the 2016 E-waste (Management) Rules that introduced the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The rules defined the responsibility of electronics producers, recyclers, and retailers in terms of targets, and made provisions for compliance and the fulfilment of EPR through third party Producer Responsibility Organisations (PRO). During my fieldwork, I worked closely with one such for-profit PRO that I call Sahih Kaam, which strives to provide services up to the highest environmental standards. Sahih Kaam goes beyond compliance with government regulations and aims to change the way in which e-waste recycling works in India. The company works to implement the EPR policy tool, which introduced the principle of competition and market into responsible recycling, to replace the infamous informal market and its harmful and unsanitary practices. The thesis traces the effects of the policy tool as it is put into practice in search of the right, environmentally responsible, and sustainable way to recycle. The thesis foregrounds the PRO's struggles to even out the contradictions engendered by the ethics of responsibility and an already saturated social landscape that patterns e-waste recycling in India. I begin my exploration of e-waste's value transformations between informal and formal recovery channels by examining the pricing of e-waste, its materiality, and the way obsolete electronics break apart in the process of market exchange. I show how market exchange produces negative value through the release of toxic substances and reinforces the need for market intervention in the name of responsibility. In the absence of effective state regulation, the PRO strives to contain this negative value through "material arrangements of honesty" that is required for transparency, traceability, and auditability. Then, I examine how the PRO and scrap dealers come together to establish responsible recycling practices—an endeavour that requires cooperation between people with distinct worldviews and ethical goals. Informal scrap dealers and the PRO produce unexpected alliances for environmentally sustainable practices. The work also focuses on the complex knowledge practices involved in navigating the market, as traders seek to acquire, possess, and hide specific market dynamics. Ultimately, my ethnographic focus on the exchange relationship between the PRO and scrap dealers brings an emergent waste infrastructure into view. The thesis shows how the promise and challenge of the enterprise of formalising e-waste recycling for the PRO lies in overcoming the incommensurability of environmental ethics and economic growth. This work of commensuration effects a series of value transformations to make waste into a new productive frontier of green capitalism.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Penelope Harvey (Supervisor) & Soumhya Venkatesan (Supervisor)