SYDNEY, Australia — Four regional Australian councils have adopted a ban on sending electronic waste to landfill, in the hopes that the move will force the federal government to finalize a national recycling scheme.
The four councils -- Mosman, Manly, Warringa and Pittwater, which together cover all of Syndey's northern beaches -- have enacted a no-landfill policy effective in January 2010, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The move, which comes in advance of the expected announcement of a national e-waste policy, will forbid the collection of computers and home electronics at curbside collections; the four councils intend for the devices to be collected in the forthcoming -- but as-yet-undefined -- national recycling system.
"Banning also achieves environmental sustainability as it stops toxic waste from reaching the [local] environment," Mehreen Faruqi, the manager of environmental services at Mosman Council, told the Herald. "We're encouraging consumers to do more recycling and coerce governments to take it seriously."
According to Australia's Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC), of the 16.8 million devices discarded in the country in 2007-2008, only 9 percent were recycled, 88 percent were sent to landfill, and the remaining 3 percent were exported.
Although a recent study found that at least some developing countries may reuse more imported old electronics than previously thought, many e-waste imports are disassembled in toxic and highly hazardous ways in order to extract whatever valuable materials remain in as cheap a manner as possible.
For that reason, a number of companies, including Dell and the e-Stewards coalition, have banned exports of unwanted electronics as a way of ensuring that materials are handled domestically and safely.
More on e-waste practices and policies are available online in GreenerComputing's End-of-Life Management section.