Fwd: Re: ReNew's recycling policy

[bradh at cuneata.net]

----- Forwarded message from Anthony Longhurst <anthony at renew.com.au> -----
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 09:37:50 +1100
From: Anthony Longhurst <anthony at renew.com.au>
Reply-To: Anthony Longhurst <anthony at renew.com.au>
Subject: Re: ReNew's recycling policy
To: Brad Hards <bhards at bigpond.net.au>

Brad

Thanks for your email to me. Perhaps you can post a reply to the site for
me, I'm the recycling contact for the company.


By way of background Canberra has two forces effecting computer recycling 1.
being the ambitious "No Waste By 2010" www.act.gov.au/nowaste and out of
this now has legislated that commercial quanities of computers cannot be
dumped into the landfill, period. We offered to run a local pilot program
locally to get an indication of what would be involved and what solutions
may exist as a service to the Canberra community. As a result of our pilot
we came up with some specific ways of dealing with IT waste, and though it
is not comprehensive we belive it tackles the majority of problems. The
major thing I want to stress is that we receive no government funding
whatsoever and that we are a commercial enterprise thus we have to levy
charges as we see appropriate to keep offering this service.

To first of all answer the query on why we don't take photocopiers (we have
a recycling source for laser printers) or typewriters is simply that 1. It's
not IT equipment and 2. We don't have a recycling solution to assist. We had
to stress this point to stop people turning up to have it recycled.

To clarify, we can take any PC monitors for a charge of $15 and it is sent
to www.mri.com.au who have a recycling process available. If people have
large quantities we recommend that they go direct to MRI as there is
significant cost savings for them. In fact this is what we recommend to the
ANU. If though a monitor is still salable we do not charge a recycling fee.
PC boxes have a charge of $10. This is basically to cover the cost labour of
stripping down to the individual components which sorts the parts for
recycling. Again if the PC can still be re-sold (basically PII up) or used
for spare parts we don't levy a charge.  Cable, metal, power supplies etc
get sold to scrap metal merchants locally. Floppy drives get re-used etc.
What I have discussed here is basically to cover the public.

In terms of larger organisations we find that there is a mix between items
that are re-usable and items that need recycling. Depending on the mix will
depend if we levy a charge. In other words we it is on a consultative basis
for organisation, and we recycle for two government departments locally on
an ongoing basis.

We feel overall that given the circumstances we are making a fair
contribution to deverting equipment away from landfill. As a society we are
still a long way of from dealing with this 100% effectively and my own
recommendations to the local government are:

Provide funding for universities to examine ways to better recycle IT goods
Provide funding for a local dedicated recycling facility perhaps extended to
things like TV's, photocopiers etc
Set a date in the future that manufactures have to accept back products to
be recycled
Equipment that is decommission be disposed of immediately so it still has
some use and not to store equipment for 10 years rendering it absolutly
useless.
Manufacturers avoid using elements that cannot or are difficult to recycle -
ie fire retardants in plastics.


I hope this clarifys a few of the points raised.

Regards


Anthony Longhurst
Renew Computers

8-10 Pirie Street Fyshwick ACT 2609

02 6239 3444
02 6239 3445 (fax)

www.renew.com.au

<my original snipped - check archives>