TakeBack America: Making the Case

Australia Approves "Historic" National E-waste Program for 2011

Australia’s environment ministers have today endorsed a new national waste policy, which will establish a landmark scheme for recycling televisions and computers.

At today’s meeting of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council in Perth, the ministers set out the first-ever framework to address resource recovery and waste management on a national level.

Under the new policy, which is targeting the mounting problem of e-waste as the first area for action, by 2011 householders will be able to drop off used computers and television sets for recycling, free of charge.

In 2007-08, 16.8 million televisions, computers and computer products reached their end of life, with 84 per cent sent to landfill. Only 10 per cent were recycled. “If Australia were to continue without any form of product stewardship scheme, projections suggest that approximately 44 million televisions and computers would be discarded in 2028, ” said Environment Minister Peter Garrett, in a statement announcing the national waste policy.

“Under the new product stewardship scheme, 80 per cent of all TVs and computers are expected to be recycled by 2021.”

The new waste policy essentially outlines Government support for what will be an industry-led e-waste collection and recycling scheme, which will see manufacturers and importers taking responsibility for their goods from cradle to grave.

For industry and community organisations that voluntarily run computer and television take-back and recycling schemes, the Government will provide an accreditation scheme so that the community can be sure what they recycle through those programs will be reused or recycled in an ethical and environment-safe way.

For non-participants in the scheme, the Government will work to ensure their products and actions comply with the same standards as voluntary participants in the scheme, ensuring that “free-riders” are unable to gain a financial advantage over those companies that willingly contribute to recycling their own products.

Ask An E-Waste Expert

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), hosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), has announced the availability of its online “Ask an Expert” service for the submission of questions related to electronics and their environmental impacts.

Sony Increases Affiliate Sales by 39 Percent

A recent report from Jupiter Research predicts that online consumer electronic sales will be $6.1 billion by 2009 - nearly 10 percent of all consumer electronic sales. The report also states that online consumer electronic shoppers spend almost twice as much as the average online consumer.

So what is the challenge for online marketers? It’s finding the right online channel for reaching lifelong customers. With the number of different online channels available, marketers increasingly look to focus their efforts and budgets on those that yield the highest return on investment.

From E-Wonderland to E-Wasteland

Although the U.S. is one the world’s largest producers of electronic waste (e-waste), it is hardly a leader in addressing this problem, given that the country has “no legally enforceable federal policies requiring comprehensive recycling of e-waste or elimination of hazardous substances from electronic products,” the researchers say.

Instead, the U.S. government has largely delegated e-waste decision making to the states, where only 19 have e-waste laws (rules are pending in 14 others). “When you have different states having different policies, it’s very difficult to give manufacturers guidance regarding how to design their products or create take-back programs,” says Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of the University of California, Irvine’s Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention and a researcher on the project…

The researchers express concern that without a cohesive national policy, the e-waste problem will get worse. They estimate that obsolete devices in U.S. households add up to 747 million pieces of potential e-waste—more than 1.36 million metric tons. They are destined for countries such as Africa, China and India, where markets thrive for second-hand electronics and the devices’ valuable source materials (such as copper and iron).

Read Dr. Ogunseitan’s article published in Science magazine, The Electronics Revolution:  From E-Wonderland to E-Wasteland.

Coupons Dictate Shopping Patterns For 1/3 Of Consumers | MediaPost

The Second Annual Benchmark Survey on Consumer Coupon Behavior, conducted by HarrisInteractive for RetailMeNot, found that consumers are increasingly defining their spending habits by whether or not retailers offer coupons:

• 30% of online adults will not make a purchase at an online store if they can’t find a coupon for that store, up from 27% in 2008
• 22% of online adults will go to a different store to make that purchase, up from 20% in 2008, while 8% will wait until a coupon is available to make the purchase (same in 2008)