European Union has gone insane!
Published January 23, 2012 | 
This is completely MAD! Forcing retailers to handle E-waste!
Not only does this place an unfair burden on the small business owners.. it's also wasteful because the user has to handle the equipment to the stores and then the stores have to get the waste to recyclers.
With this suggestion NOBODY has any incentive to manage the equipment. Not the users and certainly not the shops!
No wonder the EU is in such dire straits!
Here's some free advice from first hand experience of a system that works to the benefit of everyone AND the environment.
First point. Everything has a "Disposal Cost". The user who purchases any equipment should recognize that there is a cost to the item beyond its useful lifetime. Once unwanted/not working/worn out, the item still has to be disposed of.
Second point. There's no way in hell that most people will want to pay a recycling fee after the fact. Any recycling fees if to be paid by the user (and rightly so) would have to be collected at time of purchase!
Third point. Shop owners/retailers/manufacturers should also play a role and carry at least some of the cost or facilitate the process of recycling the equipment.
Fourth point. To make any system work there must be an incentive to all parties.
The system here in Alberta is exactly what the EU should be looking at!
Alberta Recycling Management Authority started a system of dealing with electronic waste using seed money from the tire recycling program that was created a good number of years ago. We all pay an extra recycling fee for each new tire we buy. These funds are then collected by the Authority and pooed to pay the tire recycling companies for the cost of pickups and processing of the tires.
The consumers in Alberta now also pay a recycling fee for specific electronics at point of sale. At present the reduced fees are as follows:
1. Desktop Computers (CPU) & Server – $4.40
2. Monitor – $6.00
3. Laptop, Tablet PC & Notebook Computer – $1.20
4. Printer – $4.80
5. Television
a) Less than 19 inch screen – $4.00
b) 19 inch to less than 30 inch screen – $10.80
c) 30 inch to less than 46 inch screen – $18.80
d) 46 inch and larger screen – $24.00
Close monitoring and auditing of the approved recyclers is conducted to ensure that they aren't scamming the system, and the added incentive to being paid for collecting the electronics is that they can also earn more cash by selling the component materials of the recycled equipment.
It's a system that works and puts the onus for recycling electronics where it belongs.
To paraphrase… "if one makes a mess.. one should clean it up".
Here's a link to Alberta's Recycling Management Authority.. .and some impressive stats..
http://www.albertarecycling.ca/BasicContent.aspx?id=66
#recycling #ewaste #ARMA
Embedded Link
European Union retailers to be required to accept e-waste without charge, says Parliament
Not sure what to do with your old, outdated electronics? If you live within the European Union, getting rid of your e-waste may soon
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If people were clever, they'd organise little co-op collections and take truck loads of this stuff to Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sony, McDonalds and other evil bastard companies. This could be fantastic!
Sorry to burst your bubble but we've been paying the recycle fee at point of sale for well over 10 years, in the Netherlands anyway
Thanks Jules. With so many countries in the EU there was bound to be at least one country progressive enough to have instituted a logical recycling program.
I was responding to the news report.. and how foisting the cost on retailers the EU was guaranteeing inefficiency and failure. The retailers don't want to handle the stuff.. it's a direct cost to them. Get someone who has an interest in profits from recycling to manage the ewaste stream.