Under pressure from environmentalists, Indian outsourcer Wipro announced Monday that in September it will offer a free e-waste disposal service to its PC customers.Besides its core business in outsourcing, Wipro also assembles and sells PCs under its brand for the domestic market. The e-waste disposal offer will cover all Wipro-branded PCs, but will not cover products from other vendors such as computer peripherals, like printers, that Wipro resells to its customers, said Ashutosh Vaidya, vice president of the personal computing division of Wipro of Bangalore.The company has arranged with an undisclosed e-waste processor to handle the PCs that are brought in, Vaidya said. The e-waste processing company is already handling e-waste generated by Wipro’s large outsourcing business, he added. The environmentalist organization Greenpeace International last September dumped some 500 kilograms of electronic waste outside of Wipro’s Bangalore headquarters. The activists said that they had collected the scrapped Wipro-branded computers from recycling yards in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. They targeted Wipro because it is an “iconic” Indian company, and its adoption of environmentally friendly practices could set a trend for the rest of the PC industry.Earlier this month, Greenpeace challenged Wipro and its chairman, Azim Premji, to be the first Indian electronics company to tackle the growing e-waste crisis. Wipro has been working on an e-waste disposal strategy for about a year, even before the Greenpeace protests, and has set up a process for e-waste disposal, Vaidya said.Wipro also announced Monday that it expects to have components in its PCs by the middle of next year that comply with requirements of the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances, which was adopted in February 2003 and took effect this month. The directive restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment.-John Ribeiro, IDG News Service (Bangalore Bureau)Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP Generative AI’s ‘show me the money’ moment We’re past the hype and slick gen AI sales pitches. Business leaders want results. By Julia White Nov 30, 2023 5 mins Artificial Intelligence brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers capture real economic value with zero trust Unleashing economic value: Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange transforms security architecture while cutting costs. By Zscaler Nov 30, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Sponsored by SAP A cloud-based solution to rescue millions from energy poverty Aware of the correlation between energy and financial poverty, Savannah Energy is helping to generate clean, competitively priced electricity across Africa by integrating its old systems into one cloud-based platform. By Keith E. Greenberg, SAP Contributor Nov 30, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation feature 8 change management questions every IT leader must answer Designed to speed adoption and achieve business outcomes, change management hasn’t historically been a strength of IT orgs. It’s time to flip that script by asking hard questions to hone change strategies. By Stephanie Overby Nov 30, 2023 10 mins Change Management IT Leadership Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe