National Television and Computer Product Stewardship Scheme
Development of a National Approach
At the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) meeting on 5 November 2009, Environment Ministers' agreed, following consideration of a regulatory impact statement, that the Australian Government would, under the new product stewardship legislative framework, implement regulation to support an industry-led scheme that will collect and recycle end of life televisions and computers.
The product stewardship framework legislation will provide a consistent approach to reducing the environmental footprint and health and safety risks of specified manufactured products and materials, during and at the end of their useful life.
Under the proposed approach to recycling arrangements for televisions and computers, importers or manufacturers will join a producer responsibility organisation (PRO) to organise for collection and recycling of televisions and computers.
The PRO will charge members the cost of collection and recycling. If a manufacturer or importer chooses not to join a PRO they will need to make arrangements, of the same standard as the PRO, to collect and recycle their own products at end of life. The scheme will be underpinned by the Commonwealth's product stewardship framework legislation to ensure that manufacturers or importers do not `free-ride' by avoiding their recycling responsibilities.
Non-participants will most likely be identified through a simple mechanism of comparing import data to the PRO's membership lists. Non-participants will be required to either join the PRO or comply with the safety net provisions of the framework legislation. It is expected that potential non-participants will be few because of the large number of companies (covering 80 per cent of the market) that already wish to participate.
Consumers of televisions and computers will be responsible for ensuring that their end of life televisions and computers are left at a designated collection point to be recycled-but there will be no charge to drop off an item. Consumers may be charged a small fee when they purchase a new computer or television to cover the future cost of collection and recycling.
