Manisha Pande / New Delhi August 09, 2010, 0:46 IST Do you plan to discard your mobile phone or exchange it for a new one? Then consider this: Old mobile phones constitute 1,700 tonnes of the 50,000 tonnes of e-waste generated in India each year and, according to a UN report released early this year, e-waste from mobile phones is set to rise 18 times by 2020. E-waste, or electronic waste, implies discarded computers, mobiles, refrigerators or any other electronic appliance at the end of its life. With growing consumerism, discarding e-waste has become a big challenge in the country. This has spawned a relatively new sector: Organised recycling. As of now, 16 players have sprung into action by re-cycling mobile phones, which also contain precious metals like gold, silver and platinum as well as other metals like copper. Mobile phone and PC makers gobble up three per cent of the world