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Toxic Computers:

The problem begins and ends with producers.

Words by Jane Castle

Australia is among the top ten countries in the world for per capita computer use. Yet we're one of the worst countries when it comes to dumping these toxic and resource rich products when they reach end-of-life. Around two million computers are sent to landfills every year in Australia. This figure is set to grow exponentially as sales increase. Over four million units were sold last year alone and the average life-span of a computer has shrunk to only four years. This makes computer waste an urgent action priority for governments.

The average computer is comprised of more than 700 substances, many of which are hazardous, such as lead, cadmium, and mercury. They are also filled with non-renewable materials that are rapidly approaching peak availability such as hafnium (used in computer chips), indium (used in LCD screens) and silver. When they are dumped in landfills, these materials are wasted and hazardous substances can cause damage to the environment and human health.

Australia has no policy in place to deal with this rapidly growing problem. This is in contrast to the EU, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, British Colombia and Alberta in Canada and many of the US states. These countries and states have laws that range from landfill bans to up-front levies that cover the collection and recycling at the end of the computer's life.

The most effective approach to tackle the issue is extended producer responsibility (EPR). EPR places the responsibility for collection and recycling with the original manufacturer or importer. It ensures that instead of the environmental and future generations bearing the cost, producers take responsibility for ensuring the products are recycled. This helps to provide an incentive for producers to design their products to be more environmentally friendly. They can do this by making them easier to re-use, disassemble and recycle, by using recycled materials, and by reducing the amount of hazardous substances they contain.

Australia needs to act now. E-waste is growing at three times the rate of other municipal waste. In 2004, alone, computer purchases were up by 22 per cent. In 2007, they increased another 11 per cent. In 2006, the number of computers in the marketplace was estimated at 24 million. Adding to the urgency is the Prime Minister's pledge to provide every senior high-school student with a computer.

Currently only around 2 per cent of computers are recycled, with an increasing stockpile of obsolete computers being held in storage, to eventually find their way to landfill.

Total Environment Centre has developed a model system for EPR for computers. The scheme, ‘Rebyte!', is based on the use of an Advance Recycling Fee to manage the cost of resource recovery combined with a refundable deposit to encourage consumers to bring their computers back. ReByte! has many of the same features found in the best of schemes around the world. It also has precedence in Australia such as the Product Stewardship for Oil scheme and the Refrigerant Reclaim scheme. Ideally it should be implemented by the Federal Government, but individual states can also show leadership by implementing a scheme on their own, as South Australia has done with its internationally renowned Container Deposit Scheme.

The full regulation of computers will require government to set targets, timelines and standards for producers. The advanced recycling fee, a small fraction of the total cost of the computer, would provide the financial incentive for recyclers to recover valuable resources and divert hazardous materials away from landfill. Once the scheme reaches its full potential, economies of scale will significantly reduce the fee, as has been the case in other countries.

Most importantly, computer recycling is not just about conserving material resources and diverting hazardous waste from the environment. Significant resources go into the manufacture of computers that can be saved with re-use and recycling. Microchip production, for example, involves more energy, water, fossil fuels, toxic chemicals, and elemental gases than any industry in history. Each monitor and PC takes 1.8 tons of raw materials to manufacture. The manufacture of one 17 inch monitor requires 240 kilos of fossil fuels, 22 kilos of chemicals and 15,000 kilos of water.

Apart from some computer assembly, there is currently no computer manufacturing done in Australia. Instead, the market is dominated by a small number of subsidiaries of large international companies. The top six companies in 2006 (HP, Dell, Acer, IBM, Toshiba and Apple) represented over 68 per cent of the market. However, non-brand or ‘white box' computers, which are assembled from imported parts, represent a sizeable portion of the market. The fragmented nature of the industry has meant that it has been unable to pull all players together to present a viable voluntary scheme. This means that government regulation is necessary to ensure that environmental goals are met and that no companies benefit as ‘free-riders' by not participating.

In November 2006, Australia's Environment Ministers agreed to explore regulatory options, but progress stalled in 2007. The new alignment of Labour governments now presents a historic opportunity for all jurisdictions to act in unison. It can't come any sooner.

Jane Castle is the Resource Conservation Campaigner at Total Environment Centre