Mounting Concerns Over Electronic Waste

Electronics are being replaced every day with faster and smaller devices, and yet few are recycled after these products become obsolete. As a result, mountains of electronic waste are piling up in landfills across Canada.

Of even greater concern is that most electronic equipment contains toxic substances such as lead, cadmium and mercury. These heavy metals and other substances found in electronic products can pose elevated risks to human health and the environment if they are not properly managed.

These products also contain valuable material such as aluminum, ferrous metals and copper that could be recycled. However, due to the shortage of electronic waste recycling facilities in Canada, very little is being recovered.

In response to the growing need to safely manage obsolete electronic equipment and promote product-focused resource recovery strategies, Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Industry Canada are working together with equipment brandowners, provinces, territories and other stakeholders to forge a national industry-led program to take back and properly recycle unwanted equipment.

How much e-waste is there?

Environment Canada commissioned two studies to estimate the amount of computer equipment, phones, televisions, stereos, and small home appliances disposed each year. The first study on Information Technology and Telecommunication Waste in Canada, released in October 2000, and the Baseline Study on End-of-Life Electrical and Electronic Equipment in Canada, released in June 2003, provide a better understanding of the magnitude of the e-waste problem in Canada. Combined, these studies reveal that disposed computer equipment, phones, audio-visual equipment and small household appliances account for more than 140 000 tonnes (or 4.5 kg per capita) of waste each year in Canada.

Producers Take Responsibility

Several major brandowners of electronic products have identified that they are committed to developing, financing and administering a Canada-wide program to divert e-waste from disposal by ensuring that it is properly recycled. This concept, commonly referred to as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), places the onus on producers to properly manage their products at the post-consumer stage. EPR has rapidly gained much popularity, both in Canada and other parts of the world, because it has a potential to stimulate producers to design longer-lasting, less hazardous, and more recyclable products. In Canada, EPR has already been applied to target a broad range of post-consumer product streams such as used oil, scrap tires, batteries, beverage containers and packaging.

The Canadian electronics industry established a not-for-profit organization known as Electronic Product Stewardship Canada (EPS Canada) to lead design and implementation of a national EPR program for e-waste, and liaise with Canadian governments and other stakeholders on this issue. The organization is composed of industry representatives from two industry associations, namely Information Technology Association of Canada and Electro-Federation Canada, and 16 major multi-national corporate funding partners.

EPS Canada plans to roll out the implementation of a national industry program over a five-year period, starting in 2004. Designed to encourage consumers to reuse and recycle their electronics, the program will initially target personal computers, laptops, printers and televisions. In time, the program will broaden in scope to include other types of electronic equipment.

Similar to other EPR programs, industry proposes to finance its national program by imposing environmental levies on their products. It is anticipated that consumers will be charged between $2 - 7 for laptops and printers, and $20 - 25 for televisions and personal computers.

To help ensure that hazardous wastes and recyclables are managed in an environmentally sound manner, Environment Canada is revising its existing Export and Import of Hazardous Waste Regulations and developing federal guidelines for managing end-of-life computer equipment. Combined, these tools will provide added measures to protect human health and the environment from hazardous waste and hazardous recyclable material streams, including electronics.

Refurbishing programs aimed at recycling electronic goods are gaining in popularity. Computers for Schools is just one of many programs that encourage reuse of older electronic products like computers. The Computer for Schools program reconditions donated equipment and distributes them free of charge to schools and libraries across Canada. Computers for Schools currently delivers over 340 refurbished computers per day. To date, it has refurbished over 426 000 computers.