In 2005, I saw the WEEE Man, a 3-tonne sculpture made by Paul Bonomini out of electronic trash, designed to highlight the European Union’s efforts to deal with the e-waste issue in its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive.
The European Union has voted to tighten up the directive but I think the general lack of progress in this area is leaving us all a bit pissed of – and I don’t see things getting any better. The WEEE man was refitted last year, but I think by now he should probably now be updated, to include a whole server and more network kit, based on the amount of cloud computing we all now use to support our social networking habits.
So Green IT events generally concentrate on moves to reduce energy use – often by replacing rackfuls of servers – because reducing energy cuts costs, and the user’s bottom line benefits along with his green conscience.
By contrast, the proper disposal of e-waste actually costs more money than the alternatives, which are to dump old electronics in landfill, or else to use a low-cost shipper to remove it to developing countries where it will be broken down at great cost to the environment.
It is no wonder then, that the world has always dragged its feet. The WEEE directive update has been postponed repeatedly, but how has the original directive fared? It was passed in 2003, but Britain only enacted it in 2007, after threats of legal action by the European Union. Since then, the UK has supposedly tightened up its implementation of the regulations in 2009, after delaying it for as long as possible, claiming it would be bad for business.
On the ground, of course, almost nothing has happened. Consumers are far more likely to dump electronic goods in the normal waste stream, retailers are not being made to provide the kind of recycling facilities they should, and businesses seem to be able to get away with shipping their waste away illegally to the developing world.
This is happening because the will is not there. Recycling bodies such as the WEEE Advisory Body proved soft targets in last years “Bonfire of the Quangos“, but in fact, an acute shortage of inspectors has made it very easy for illegal dumpers to get through.
In the end, nothing will be done until business users and consumers actually pay for the full environmental impact of what they buy – and this is rarely the case at the moment.
But there are plenty of steps to take towards reducing the amount of electronic waste we dump. WEEE should be one of them – and who knows, maybe it will start to have a real and visible effect soon. And who know, as bad as things are, maybe they would be even worse without it.
As well as this, though, we should also be actively promoting re-use. There is a standard for computer reuse in the works, and there is even a possibility that there could be a “target” for re-use in the eventual replacement for the WEEE directive – although an optional “target” in a directive which everyone does their best to ignore clearly won’t make much difference in itself.
Some are making efforts to change the economics of repair, so users will have equipment mended instead of throwing it away. Comtek, which operates IT repair centres, attempted to get the last government to scrap VAT on computer repairs.
That didn’t fly, but the company has a broader campaign this year, based on the Three R’s – Re-Use, Repair and Reduce, which will launch at the House of Commons in March. While we don’t think we can expect much practical political backing, the campaign is definitely on the right track.
I’d like to see it succeed, enough to prompt a reduction in the WEEE Man’s massive 3-tonne weight.
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Another issue to consider is the end of support for Windows XP which is on the horizon. There are still a lot of XP machines out there and ending support could be the only way for Microsoft to force an upgrade to Windows 7. But if it happens, Microsoft may back-pedal again. It will see a lot of kit consigned to the waste stream:
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/microsoft-is-threatening-xps-green-demise-7427
Couldn't agree more Andrew. End-of-lifing products can put a bullet through the re-use and repair strategy, too.
Peter
But this sensible suggestion runs counter to every fibre of the tech industry's being, which exists to create products flawed enough that we will eventually upgrade to new ones.
A great example are the 'green' products that have appeared in the last few years. So green, that is, that they ask us to purchase them instead of simply re-using the ones we have.
Part of the answer lies in software that lets us unlock the potential of old hardware. A good example would be sticking Ubuntu or Fedora on an aging laptop and finding, hey presto, that it's now as fast as the shinier new one running Windows 7...
Peter
I really liked this post.
There was a lot of stretching of equipment replacement cycles in the recession, but the massive increases in PC, peripheral and server sales last year show that 'scrimp and save' was temporary and we're back to the 'five year' replacement cycle and similar. We’re not just computerising the emerging countries - the growth was everywhere.
On the positive side the value of the server market has been declining thanks to virtualisation. Although units have grown, it would be a lot worse if we still had one application per server. Also it wasn’t a great year for gaming consoles, storage systems or networking kit.
Why do Western governments assume citizens all want to save the Planet, when their actions prove otherwise? We keep buying new gadgets and we're running our electricity generation at capacity. Most of the 1.3 billion mobile phones sales last year had cameras built in - so photography is no longer a hobby, it's a data epidemic. Perhaps we all just like shiny things. In any case it reminds me that you should always scrap the old kit when you do consolidation projects and turn of the machines when there’s nobody there.
You might want to read my piece 'Refurbish, Recycle, Repurpose', which is on my blog.
Best Martin
When I posed questions on a well known forum not so long ago I was bombarded with responses (from very pieved engineers) which in turn posed further questioning, and all these question were relative to the T11, the £840 levy (stealth tax) posted by the Environment Agency for WEEE exemption to repairing for reuse
That was one response that I got from an engineer who wanted to do the 'right thing' by keeping waste electricals out of landfil and brush-up on his skills at the same time as preparring the appliance for reuse.
In short, it seems that what the government are saying is: If you intend to rebuild it to sell it and make a profit from it, then we want some of that profit. We'll have a little of it in tax, and then when you purchase the parts to repair it we'll have a little bit more tax from you. Then if you are still insitstant on repairing the item, we'll have a little more off you by charging you a levy of £840 to allow you to do it.. One way or another we will discourage you from repairing that machine because otherwise the local travellers who roam the streets collecting all this scrap and don't pay any tax on the machines they scrap will have nothing to live on.
Oh and just in case you are going to strip it for spares, those spare are worth money so we'll administer the same levi on that activity too since want some of that money, but we dont just want the tax.. it's not enough....
However, If you are going to scrap the machine then we don't want any of the money because we would be seen to be profiting from an environmentally unfriendly act and we can't be seen to do that can we.
It really does seem farcical... several government officials seem to be very confused and discouraged by the WEEE system too. The system that is set up to protect the environment seems to be the system that will allow it to be plundered of its resources to build ne machines that should not have had to be build since the one that has just been taken away to be scrapped by the local travellers only required a door switch costing less than £5.00. Instead, all the rest of its working parts are to travel the world in a huge carbon footprint, only to be melted down to make another machine that will take its place after another huge carbon footprint to get it to the UK string of chains (no names).
Anyway, I have since set-up a website called Find My Recycler. The findmyrecycler website, now live in 'Stage 1' form, has the aim of connecting consumers to recyclers worldwide in an effort to reduce waste, reduce carbon emissions, and save money for consumers and companies alike... Do You Know A Recycler – Do You Think They Would Like To Join Us? Let us know who they are and we will contact them. recycler@findmyrecycler.co.uk
by George Laugharne