A growing and imminent waste crisis is about to hit the USA. The source may surprise you: it’s the computer sitting on your desk.
Computer junk is growing at an escalating rate throughout the world. Consider that in the USA:
More than half the households in America now own a computer and most people don’t know what to do with their old computer.
What’s worse, your computer contains more than 1,000 materials and many of them are hazardous. If dumped in landfills, chemicals will leach out, endangering groundwater and putting the health of local communities at risk. If incinerated, they can generate toxic emissions such as dioxins.
Can the computer industry clean up? Can computers be safely recycled?
Yes. But only if consumers demand it. Join the Clean Computer Campaign and find out how.
An important new Take It Back! Platform was developed at a recent meeting in Washington D.C. which was organized by SVTC and attended by over 20 activists from throughout the country. Add your name to the list of endorsers!
Introduction to the Platform
Discarded electronic equipment is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the industrialized world, due to the growing sales and rapid obsolescence of these products. Electronic equipment is also one of the largest known sources of heavy metals and organic pollutants in the waste stream. Without effective phase-outs of hazardous chemicals and the development of effective collection, reuse and recycling systems, highly toxic chemicals found in electronics will continue to contaminate soil and groundwater as well as pollute the air, posing a threat to wildlife and people.
The Electronics Take It Back! Campaign supports the guiding principle called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for post-consumer electronics waste. The objective of EPR is to make brand name manufacturers and distributors financially responsible for their products when they become obsolete. Our ultimate aims are pollution prevention and waste avoidance through a hierarchy of practices, including source reduction, reuse, re-manufacturing and recycling.
Currently, the expense of collecting, managing and disposing of discarded electronics — including household hazardous waste collection and hazardous waste site cleanup — is borne by taxpayer-funded government programs, primarily at the local level. We support having manufacturers and distributors assume responsibility for these costs, so that they can be internalized and reflected in product prices. This creates a incentive for manufacturers of electronics to reduce such costs by designing products that are clean, safe, durable, reusable, repairable, upgradable, and easy to disassemble and recycle.
Companies that innovate more quickly will end up being more competitive than those that delay. Many companies in countries throughout Europe and Asia are already implementing EPR programs in response to government regulations.
To achieve electronics EPR, we adopted the following platform:
TAKE IT BACK, MAKE IT CLEAN!
Take It Back Principles
• Financial and/or Physical Responsibility. Manufacturers and distributors of electronic equipment must take financial and/or physical responsibility for their products throughout the entire product lifecycle, including in particular take-back and end-of-life management. This responsibility must include:
** Reduced use of hazardous materials in manufacturing;
** Collection, disassembly, reuse and recycling of discarded computer equipment to the highest degree practicable; and
** Requirements that recycling is done in an environmentally sound manner.
