With annual revenues of Rs 15 crore, Eco Recycling Ltd (Ecoreco), a Mumbai-based company that is the “first company to formally recycle e-waste in India” operates ISO-certified facilities and is currently listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
Interestingly, they don’t pay individual users for their dead mobile phones or keyboards. So, how does the company make money?
Ecoreco works with MNCs or OEMs looking to recycle large volumes of e-waste.
Let’s say an MNC wants to get rid of 2,000 laptops so Ecoreco would buy them at a nominal value and then segregate them. Out of those 2000 laptops there are at least 400 which can be refurbished for the market reuse, and these items get sold out quickly.
The remaining 1,600 pieces are completely shredded and segregated at company facility using the latest technology and protective gear for the workers.
There are three kinds of materials which get segregate in a laptop namely different varieties of metals, plastic and glass, whose consolidated value is larger than the investment made by Ecoreco. This is how the company makes margin.
Ecoreco was responsible for setting key milestones in the e-waste management sector long before the electronics industry and governments were ready for them.
For example, they claim to have established the first producers’ responsibility organization or PRO, which is defined as “a professional organization authorized or financed collectively or individually by producers, which can take the responsibility for collection and channelization of e-waste generated from the ‘end-of-life’ of their products so as to ensure environmentally sound management of such e-waste”.
Starting out as a bootstrapped entity, today, the company comprises three main investors.
B.K. Soni (The Founder) has a 71 per cent stake, the Times of India Group holds 9 per cent and another 4 per cent belongs to the company supplying them with the latest technology.
The rest of 16 per cent is owned by 4,000 shareholders on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
From its humble beginnings in 2005, today Ecoreco recycles 7,200 metric tonnes per annum.
This is a Businesswire Feed; edited by Clean-Future Team