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Community
enterprise to help the unemployed:
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Computer
re-use
in the community:
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Collaborative
IT
wastestream for the North Staffordshire area:
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The
registered
charity:
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PC
Technician Training:
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Does your
organisation need to dispose of computer equipment?
Then do it through TECC – The Ethical Computer Centre
(and help the community locally and in developing countries …. especially the unemployed)
Then do it through TECC – The Ethical Computer Centre
(and help the community locally and in developing countries …. especially the unemployed)
The European WEEE Directive:  (Waste
Electrical & Electronic Equipment)The UK scheme provides that all or most Local Authority tips will be collection centres for all WEEE. Computers (category 3) are regarded as automatically WEEE as soon as a first user has finished with them & therefore within the scope of the regulations. Monitors continue to be governed by hazardous waste regulations. Applications to register private collection centres are also allowed. These can set their own rules and are not obliged to take everything from everybody. WEEE will get to the collection centres from three sources:
WEEE transfer from collection centres to treatment will be arranged and paid for by a producer consortium which the government is obliging all producers to join. A Personal Reflection on WEEE Chapter 1: The Beginning So what is a small enterprise dedicated to getting computers reused for as long as possible to make of the way in which the EU Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment Directive is to be implemented in the UK – as far as we can work out so far? Something which has been irksome since the directive first appeared on the horizon has been a determination to classify anything which a first owner doesn’t want any more as waste. This approach is not adopted to any other category – motor cars or furniture for example. Perhaps there are other directives in store which may upset this common sense judgement. Anyway, it appears silly to classify what is reusable as waste in this case. Alas! That contention seems to have been ignored. Would it be too cynical to see the persuasive power of original equipment producers associated with that decision? There is as a result a probability of double counting of recovery in due course since what is reused will count as part of waste recovered the first time round and then when it really is thrown away it will be counted again. Well, that should make it easier to meet the government’s targets. At least there are some good words about reuse in the DTI draft guidance. Has it been made as easy as possible to give them substance? There seems to be an idea that IT equipment which has been through a collection site can and will then be passed on to organisations which wish to reuse it in a state fit for them to do so. We must hope so, but surely it is legitimate to ask why double handling in this way makes any sense (and who is to bear the cost) and what the average collection centre (aka Council tip) is likely to do to the kit in transit. History does not give grounds for hope but it springs eternal anyway. I hope that there will be scope for direct acquisition by computer refurbishers without impossible bureaucratic hurdles to jump and at reasonable cost. More on this subject when the Environment Agency has spoken. Turning then to recycling, some of which will inevitably be required when refurbishment aspirations prove illusory, what do we know about that? We know that as soon as we get into treatment, ie anything except continued use as originally intended, the rules cluster thick & fast and the price goes up, though I can’t work out just what it will be. Again it surely makes sense to shorten the supply chains as far as possible, get rid of all the metal we can to a local merchant etc. Producers are forced into a government mandated consortium so one must suspect that they have no scope to innovate. Retailers are freer, business users freer still and the public has no obligations whatever. Only time will tell how they will use their degrees of freedom. What is the logic, by the way, of imposing disposal charges on business and not household users if these things are so terrible? Perhaps someone noticed that there is no business vote. On a more philosophical note, why are we so worried about otherwise frankly useless plastic going to landfill and being identifiable many years later? We don’t seem to worry about bones & oyster shells. Also, I have a feeling that Local Authorities with smart new incinerators are not going to leave them underfed. Others’ ideas and suggestions would be very welcome. Just email to littleweeed@tecc.org.uk. Little Weeed.
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