Ever wondered how to safely dispose of your old mobile phone? Wondered what to do with the beyond-repair TV lying in the store-room?
Enter Attero Recycling, a Venture Capital funded start up targeting the emerging Indian market for recycling. Thanks to new environmental regulations under process, all electronics companies will have have ‘take back’ mechanism for their old products from the middle of next year too.
Attero, which has raised around $15 million (Rs 67 crore) from venture capitalists like IndoUS Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, International Finance Corporation etc., doesn’t want you to wait.
Not only does its new website-based collection mechanism allow you to be more environmental friendly, it will even pay you for your old gadgets. It has, initially, started off with the mobile phone.
Once you enter the name and model number of your product, the website immediately tells you how much your old stuff is really worth. In fact, you can even use your the return money to have a tree planted & maintained in your name.
Unlike the local ‘kabadi-walah,’ you can rest assured that the company is not going to pollute the soil or water with your junk, thanks to Attero’s advanced recycling plant in Uttarakhand.
According to the company, the “highly automated facility” for integrated e-waste recycling at Roorkee is the first-of-its kind indigenous metallurgical process developed in its R&D division. It has also tied up with a leading US company for mechanical separation.
Under India’s upcoming environmental law for recycling, all companies will have to either collect their old products themselves or hire companies like Attero to collect the waste. Some 200 clients, including Wipro, HCL, Tata Tele Services and Google has hired the company already.
Rohan Gupta, CEO of the company pointed out that the initiative has been launched to address the looming challenge of disposing off the nearly 1 billion handsets that India has or will soon have. He pointed out that the average life of a mobile handset is only 18 months, after which most of them have to disposed off.
“I am very excited to launch this never-before initiative as the growing number of mobile phones is a serious concern today and it was high time that someone addressed it.
“Atterobay.com is a fairly simple and user friendly portal which comes to the rescue of a layman who is concerned about the environment but does not know how to effectively contribute to reducing carbon footprint,” he pointed out.