Green law will fail to cut waste problems

Think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says upcoming environmental legislation will do little to reduce electronic waste.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive comes into force in the UK on 1 January and will oblige manufacturers of electronic goods such as computers to recover and responsibly dispose of products.

But the IPPR’s A Zero Waste UK report, published last week, says the law does not encourage equipment makers to think about the sustainability of products or manufacturing processes.

‘Existing producers are very good at collection and recycling, but the responsibility has been so dissipated that it has not encouraged redesign, and it has not reduced total volume of waste,’ said report author Julie Hill.

‘What tends to happen with these EU producer-responsibility schemes is they set up a third party for recycling, and then wash their hands of it. They have no direct incentive to produce a different kind of product,’ she said.

The IPPR believes an ecological tax would make producers act more responsibly.

‘With a generic eco-tax the government could pick off particular products and say: “We want to encourage alternatives to these” or: “We want to see certain recycling rates attached to the manufacturing process”, and levy those taxes accordingly,’ says the report.

Analyst Gartner’s Lars Mieritz, said: ‘The WEEE directive is aimed at cutting waste as much as trying to organise existing waste.’

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Further Reading:

Green issues concern us all

Firms gear up for impact of WEEE