Beyond Formal Channels: A Stakeholder-Driven Closed-Loop Supply Chain Framework for Diagnosing Effectiveness Gaps in India's E-Waste Management System

Abstract

The government data in FY2024-25 indicates that the officially reported amount of e-waste collected, dismantled and recycled or disposed has increased to 70.71 per cent from 61.94 per cent in FY2023-24, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, 2025). India is considered as third largest E-waste producer in the world after China and United States. Even taking CPCB's own optimistic figures at face value, close to 30 percent of officially estimated generation remains outside documented formal channels in the most recent reporting year, and because CPCB's generation estimates are themselves modelled from producer sales data and average product life rather than measured directly, independent field-based research on India's informal e-waste sector suggests this gap understates the true scale of informal absorption.This gap between regulatory design and documented operational outcomes motivates the present paper. Drawing on Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984) and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework (Elkington, 1997), this paper develops a conceptual model in which Government Policy Support, Consumer Awareness, Technology Readiness, and Infrastructure Availability act as stakeholder-driven antecedents of the Effectiveness of E-Waste Management, which in turn mediates the achievement of a Sustainable E-Waste Solution. Departing from prior applications of this model class, the paper reframes the mediating construct as a diagnostic "leakage point" at which stakeholder inputs are only partly converted into documented formal-channel outcomes, and it operationalises the TBL economic pillar through the concept of urban-mining value capture. The analysis draws on verified primary and official secondary data, including CPCB and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change reporting to Parliament, National Green Tribunal filings, the Global E-waste Monitor 2024 (UNITAR/ITU), and peer-reviewed literature, to illustrate the framework's plausibility and to generate testable propositions for future primary research. The paper concludes with policy implications for EPR enforcement, informal-sector integration, and infrastructure planning in the Indian context.