EU Law: If you sell it, take it back!

EU electronic waste legislation becomes compulsory
Retailers will be required to take back old electronic equipment

By Jennifer Baker | IDG News Service | Published 08:33, 14 August 12

A European Union law that will require all large electronic retailers to take back old equipment came into force yesterday.

The new rules are part of a shake-up of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and will gradually be implemented across the E.U. over the next seven years.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment, or WEEE, is one the fastest growing waste streams in the EU, but currently only one-third of electrical and electronic waste is separately collected and appropriately treated. Systematic collection and proper treatment is essential for recycling materials like gold, silver, copper and rare metals in used TVs, laptops and mobile phones.

The revised directive will increase the collection target from its current 4 kilograms per capita to around 20 kg per capita by 2020. By 2020, it is estimated that the volume of WEEE will increase to 12 million tons and the E.U. authorities want to see at least 85 percent of that collected and treated. From 2018, the directive will be extended from its current restricted scope to all categories of electronic waste.

Meanwhile the retailer take-back plan means that by February 2014 at the latest, larger electrical goods stores, with a shop space of 400 square meters or larger, will have to accept small WEEE items, such as mobile phones, free of charge, without consumers having to purchase a new product.

The revised directive also includes a clampdown on illegal exports of waste electronic equipment. Equipment that is no longer under warranty can only be exported to non-OECD countries if it has been certified to be fully functional and sent properly.

source: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3375708/eu-electronic-waste-legislation-becomes-compulsory/

Obviously the same thing should be true not just for electronic items, but for all other types of items such as furniture, vehicle parts, clothing and linens, etc.

This is one more thing about the USA which is sickening. If a vendor sells a product, that vendor should be required to also accept the used/expired product back in order to safely and properly dispose of or otherwise process it. This makes sense because if a company is already involved with the distribution and sale of an item, it can already tap into that distribution/supply system to simply return the used items. The manufacturers of the items can also deal with the responsible disposal of items that they produce. Think of things like furniture where the materials cannot be recycled by the consumer and would contribute massively to landfill waste. There is no excuse for this. Such a law will also encourage manufacturers to think about how they manufacture items in order that they can eventually be disposed of in a responsible manner.

Every store in Germany which sells beverages in bottles must also accept the bottles back and pay the redemption value to the customer. In California where I live the whole redemption thing is a sad joke. Stores which sell dozens if not hundreds of beverages in redeemable containers each day do not even bother to offer the redemption back.

I’m willing to bet she rode her bicycle with the bottles to return to the supermarket.
I miss being in Europe!