Electronic waste is a new social problem
Electronic waste is a new social problem

A survey released by Nasscom reveals that India generates 2.7 million tonnes of E-Waste annually. Of this, over 60 per cent is generated by 65 cities. A whopping 70 per cent of the total Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) come from ten states, wherein Mumbai leads the country for generating the highest E-Waste, followed by Delhi and Bangalore.

A government authorized e-waste collector, Karma is a unique start-up that allows customers to trade in used models of working/non-working mobiles, laptops etc and get reimbursed directly with least hassle. Aamir Jariwala, Co-Founder & CEO of Karma Recycling talks about the operational model of company and the algorithm to find value of a device.

Excerpts

How does the entire process works at Karma?

We bring on these devices that people sell up and we work on them, be it repair or refurbishment. In house we have a team of 15 engineers who do the repair/ refurbishment. We make the product ready for resale with slight margins.

What made you come up with a venture like this?

Initially we started as e-waste manager so we were looking at bulk electronic waste, pick up all the old cartridges and printers, all sort of old electric and we would essentially find these recycling plant where we need to marry that volume offered. But we realized in our journey that there was a very big hole in the entire space and smartphones, tablets, laptops, mobile devices required very specific way of testing introduced in the market and then taken back because a ton of e-waste of certain grade costs around 25 to 30 thousand.

There is very big paradigm shift required and the processes need to be managed the lot of equipment.

Also usefulness has to be built because now-a-days people switch to new devices every 9-10 months. So, this leads us around this part of electronic waste world. It is a very new social problem. We never had this problem before. 

Very less of the existing companies are there equipped and ready to handle problems, especially in India. The homegrown companies are the only option so we are trying to do the best we can by being innovative, bringing those devices back, giving them a new life and moving them on value chain before they get dumped in drawers.

Talk to us about the algorithm you use to evaluate product value.

Essentially they are multiple types of tablets, smartphones, laptops out there - the most prominent thing is how to do you value them?. We just have to find a way to communicate to all users who actually have all these devices. There is a set of questions which will give you the value of device. Which include factors like the model number, type of device, its popularity etc. which involves a significant amount of research. The algorithm uses about 30 parameters etc. to determine the value of a device.

Does brand plays any role in valuation process?

Yes, it has a very big impact because today there is a huge market and what we do in terms of evaluating is actually an indicator of how good the original product was. Brand is obviously one of the first parameters used in algorithm.

There is a retail portal as well to resale the device…

Yes we do have a portal, but a large part of our revenues comes through the offline channel in tier 4 or tier 5 cities. People like portal and we are expanding very soon.

What is the percentage share of tablets, laptops and smartphones?

Smartphones and Tablets contribute to about 80 per cent and remaining is through laptops.

How has been the market acceptance?

If talking about Karma, we have pitched the market with a lot more work, recycling for both retailer and consumer and reselling. The product we sell are now gaining market acceptance and we are beefing up the buyback program.

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