Business Services Scoping Study of Recycling of Redundant Computer Equipment
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Federal and State Government Positions
In 2004 the Environment Ministers from all States and Territories plus the Federal Government Minister working together as the Environmental Protection and Heritage Council issued a discussion paper on product stewardship for a range of products, including computers.
Product stewardship includes all aspects of a product's life from production, distribution, consumption, and waste. It seeks to ensure that environmental management policies focus on the product right through its life.
This framework has been used to draw up National Environmental Protection (Product Stewardship) Measures for each group of products.
In many cases a co-regularity approach has been adopted to allow both a voluntary approach by those companies who wish to run their own schemes and a regularity approach to capture those companies who do not take part in the voluntary scheme. These are sometimes referred to as the 'free rider regulations'; to ensure that all participants contribute equally.
In the electrical and electronic products areas the scale of the potential problem is significant as outlined above.
Televisions
The Consumer Electronics Suppliers Association [CESA], who represent the majority of the major TV manufacturers, have set up Product Stewardship Australia Ltd, which is an industry led initiative to divert thousands of tonnes of TV's from landfill to recycling. With its co-regularity framework to capture the free riders it could be the model that the computer industry may follow. The CESA have submitted a draft agreement to the Federal Government for consideration. It is likely that a pilot study will be operating within three months in Melbourne. It is expected that about $24 -$27 per TV will be required to achieve the recycling goals. Two of the major challenges to be addressed are the weight of TV's, especially the older cabinet styles and the amount of lead in the cathode ray tubes.
After the pilot has been completed, it is likely that role out of the programme will be Sydney/Melbourne followed by the other State capitals and then rural and regional centres. This product area could be of interest to Business Services in the future as TV's could be added to say computers, thus increasing the range of products being recycled, especially in the smaller population centres.
The Executive Officer of Product Stewardship Australia expressed an interest in the possible use of Business Services in the recycling of TV's in rural and regional Australia.
Tyres
A national plan for the recycling of tyres is well advanced with a draft agreement already in place. It has some interesting differences from other programmes with a proposed system for an 'Advanced Recycling Fee'; to be collected at or close to the point of sale of the new tyre. This fund will then be used to reimburse companies/organizations [possibly around $1,000 per metric tonne] that produce products, partly or totally made from old tyres, for an approved variety of end uses such as playground soft fall, road base and sporting arenas.