[GreenYes] New E-waste Alliance

[amy perlmutter <amy@no.address>]

New York Times
Technology

Article Tools Sponsored By
By REUTERS
Published: March 6, 2007


OSLO (Reuters) - A new U.N.-led alliance will work out global scrapping
guidelines to protect the environment from mountains of electronic trash
such as computers, phones and televisions, the group said on Tuesday.

Three U.N. agencies, 16 firms including Microsoft,Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N)
and Philips (PHG.AS), several government bodies and universities said they
were teaming up with goals such as more recycling and longer lives for
electronic goods.

``There's an urgent need to harmonize approaches to electronic waste around
the world,'' said Ruediger Kuehr of the U.N. University, who will head a
secretariat of the new StEP (Solving the E-waste Problem) project in Bonn,
Germany.

He told Reuters that e-waste -- such as microwave ovens, batteries,
photocopiers or hairdryers -- often released toxins if incinerated. Older
gadgets contain poisonous chemicals such as dioxins or PCBs or heavy metals
such as mercury or cadmium.

Some products contain valuable gold and platinum or more exotic indium
(IND-ING-LON), used in flat-screen televisions, or ruthenium (RUTH-LON),
used in resistors. Prices of indium, for instance, have surged to $725 a
kilo from $70 in 2002.

Electronic and electrical waste is among the fastest-growing types of trash
in the world and is likely soon to reach 40 million metric tons a year, or
enough to fill a line of dump trucks stretching half way round the world,
StEP said.

StEP would run several projects in coming years, likely to cost millions of
dollars, to lay down guidelines for scrapping gadgets, building on national
legislation from places such as Japan, the European Union and the United
States.

It would encourage companies to make products that last longer and shift to
make more products with components that can be upgraded, rather than dumped.
The Secretariat, with three full-time staff, will contract out most of the
work.

In the end, the alliance aims to develop a StEP logo for companies to put on
their products to show that scrapping processes conform to international
guidelines.

``Consumers will benefit through knowing what to do with their obsolete
machines, less pollution and longer-lasting electronic equipment,'' Hans van
Ginkel, the head of the U.N. University, said in a statement.

``Companies involved in StEP will benefit through globally standardized,
safe and environmentally-proven processes for disposal, reduction or reuse
and recycling of e-scrap,'' he said.

He said the new guidelines would not push up prices, and product costs could
even fall with streamlined global rules.

Many products already include costs of disposal. A 2005 directive in the
European Union, for instance, requires electronics makers to set up
recycling and disposal systems.

But many countries have no rules, especially in developing nations where
much obsolete equipment ends up dumped.




-- 
Amy Perlmutter
Fellow, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, UMass
Principal, Perlmutter and Associates
23 Avon Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-354-5456


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