E-waste stewardship in Australia

Australia’s electronic waste is a growing problem, with only a small fraction of it being recycled and the rest ending up in landfill. A new announcement from the EPHC is set to change all that, however, as Andrew Collins reports.

Australians have a great appetite for technology: in 2007/2008 Australian consumers and businesses purchased more than 31 million new TVs, computers and computer peripherals. In that same timeframe, we threw away almost 17 million old devices. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, 88% of those devices ended up in landfill, with only 9% being recycled (the remaining 3% were exported).

These figures shouldn’t be much of a surprise, considering the limited options Australia has for recycling e-waste. So far they’ve been constrained to the individual efforts of a few local councils and some technology manufacturers.

The only large scale e-waste collection scheme so far in Australia has been Byteback, a trial program run by Sustainability Victoria and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), and supported by 10 or so IT manufacturers. Under the scheme, Victorians can go to eight locations around the state and drop off their old computers and peripherals for recycling, regardless of brand.

TIC Group e-waste recycling centre, Victoria.

But Byteback, which is voluntary for manufacturers, suffers from free riders: manufacturers and importers that don’t want to contribute to recycling measures. So the few companies involved must bear the financial and administrative burden of the many hundreds of vendors that aren’t. This makes potential volunteers wary of joining. After all, why should they suffer when their direct competitors might refuse to join?

The situation will soon change. On 5 November, the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) announced a framework for a national e-waste collection scheme, intended to increase the amount of e-waste being recycled.

A framework for stewardship

The collection scheme that ultimately comes out of this framework will take the shape of ‘product stewardship’. This means that everyone in the product chain will bear some part of the burden for collecting and recycling e-waste. Manufacturers and importers will either have some recycling responsibilities or taxes, government will contribute and consumers will pay a little more for each device they purchase.

The scheme will initially cover televisions, computers and computer peripherals. Game consoles, mobile phones and everything else are excluded for the time being. But Jeff Angel, Director of environmental lobbyist group Total Environment Centre (TEC), explains that the scope of the scheme will change over time.

“There’s a suggestion that other electronic waste will come in later. That’s open for the future,” says Angel.

And at first, the scheme will only target home consumers and small businesses - it won’t directly address large corporates. But according to Josh Millen, corporate responsibility manager at the AIIA, this is another thing that will eventually change.

Josh Millen, Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability, AIIA.

“The scope of the program over 10 years will change to cover all organisational and community IT e-waste. Corporate stuff will be included over time, but you have to start somewhere,” Millen says.

Large corporates tend to get rid of their PCs every few years, long before the machines reach end of life. They often sell these outdated computers to retail shops, which then upgrade and sell the machines to consumers, diverting these computers away from landfill. Millen says the scheme may end up accounting for these reselling practices.

At the time of writing, the exact shape of the framework has yet to be decided. The EPHC released a Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) in July, which examines the scope of Australia’s e-waste problem and explores the various forms a framework could take.

Without going into great detail, the nine options range from state-based extended producer responsibility (EPR) safety nets co-managed by government and industry, to mandatory Commonwealth levies with government-run subsidy schemes, with many variations in between. Some involve joint TV and IT industry associations to collect e-waste, while other options suggest separate bodies.

Each option is mandatory to some degree, requiring participation from a good proportion of manufacturers and importers.

TEC’s Angel says the collection scheme that comes out of the framework should be in place by late 2010, following the set-up of crucial infrastructure.

A model of concern

According to the RIS, there’s little difference between the nine options in terms of the present value of costs and benefits. But the AIIA, which represents Australia’s IT industry, believes some options will allow free riders to shirk their recycling responsibilities.

Therefore, the AIIA prefers a national mandatory import licence model. Under such a model, companies would require a licence to import electronic goods into the country. Licence-holders would have the choice of joining an industry group that exists to collect and recycle e-waste, or collecting their own products once they reach end of life. A threshold would apply to the licence - you wouldn’t want to include people buying a couple of iPods from the US on eBay, for example.

Under such a framework, Millen says, 95% of importers and manufacturers would pay for 100% of the collection, minimising the impact of free riders. Each member would pay a percentage of the overall costs of the scheme, based on their current market share of imports, making it reasonably fair to participants. The industry would focus on administering collection and recycling, while the government would focus on policing the scheme, making sure everyone who should be involved is involved.

With a framework like this, the AIIA could convert the existing Byteback scheme into the industry body governing IT e-waste collection. This would be of benefit since Byteback is already set up and functioning.

But if the EPHC decides that government should manage the program, the IT industry would go along with it.

“At the end of the day, we’re committed to picking up e-waste. It’d be a shame that they would look at dismantling [Byteback], but that may be the case,” Millen says.

TEC’s Angel also endorses an import licence model.

“It’s the simplest way of getting all the participants in the industry covered, because each major participant doesn’t want to be undercut by someone else who is not fulfilling their EPR responsibilities,” he says.

And if the industry wants to bear the cost of administering the program, then let them, Angel says, “as long as the arrangements for the resulting program are comprehensive”.

Shane Mulholland is managing director of Greenbox, a company that manages the resale and recycling of old machines for large corporates and government bodies.

He endorses a co-regulatory model like the AIIA’s, which he says would engender a free market for recycling. This would encourage the formation of new recycling companies, and the resultant competition would be good for recycling costs.

Competition would also drive up the quality of Australia’s recycling facilities, which Mulholland says are currently poor.

“The current recyclers we have, as a very general statement, provide a very low quality-type service. The cleanliness of the actual output - the recycled matter - tends to be very low quality, very dirty,” Mulholland says.

Letting the industry manage the scheme would also allow the government to focus on tracking and potentially prosecuting unethical recycling companies. Many purported recyclers illegally ship e-waste overseas. Some even ship working computers overseas under the guise of e-waste, where valuable components are stripped. In both cases, the waste is dumped, not recycled, and it contaminates and destroys local environments.

“I personally believe that the government should be focusing more on driving back or prosecuting those who are doing the wrong thing,” Mulholland says.

These unethical recyclers will also undermine the national recycling scheme: the scheme requires economies of scale to function correctly, Mulholland says, and this will not be there if large quantities of e-waste continue to be exported.

NATIONAL WASTE POLICY

Recycling schemes for TVs, computers and tyres

At a meeting in Perth on 5 November, the nation’s environment ministers endorsed a new National Waste Policy, the first such national framework charting a 10-year vision for resource recovery and waste management.

The policy includes a landmark scheme for recycling computers and televisions, with householders able to drop off used computers and TVs for recycling free of charge, Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett announced.

The National Waste Policy sets out a comprehensive agenda for national coordinated action on waste across six key areas:

• Taking responsibility
• Improving the market
• Pursuing sustainability
• Reducing hazard and risk
• Tailoring solutions
• Providing the evidence

Computers and televisions will be the first products regulated. The government will provide support to the industry-led collection and recycling scheme by ensuring industry non-participants comply with the same standards as industry members voluntarily participating.

This will ensure that free-riders are unable to gain a financial advantage over those companies that willingly contribute to recycling their own products.

Under the new product stewardship framework there is provision for mandatory, voluntary and co-regulatory schemes. Industry and community organisations that run voluntary schemes will be able to gain accreditation so that the community knows that what they recycle through these schemes will be re-used or recycled in an ethical and environmentally safe way.

Ministers also agreed to the development of an industry-led scheme for the recycling of used tyres.

More information is available at: www.ephc.gov.au.