New Zealand faces an ewaste crisis
12 July 2011
The eDay New Zealand Trust has released a report highlighting the spiralling electronic waste (ewaste) problem in New Zealand. The report estimates that 2.2 million televisions and 1.5 million home computers, each containing toxic cathode ray tubes, will be dumped in the next few years.
"Our desire for the latest gadget has resulted in this huge environmental crisis in New Zealand and the world. Computer sales are on the increase and we are facing a disposal deluge of CRT TVs with the imminent switch to digital television in September 2012," said Laurence Zwimpfer, Chair of the eDay New Zealand Trust.
"This hunger for electronics must be met with Government regulation to ensure thousands of tonnes of toxic ewaste will not be dumped in our landfills," he continued.
With the release of the report, the eDay Trust is calling on industry and Government to work together and permanently solve the increasing problem through a national co-regulatory ewaste product stewardship based recycling scheme.
"We are not talking about heavy handed Government intervention. We're calling on the Government to give the IT and TV industries a clear commitment to support an industry managed scheme with the necessary regulations to ensure all suppliers and importers contribute equitably to the costs of a national recycling scheme," Mr Zwimpfer said.
The release of this report coincides with the recent passing of the Product Stewardship Bill by both Houses of Parliament in Australia on 22 June 2011. The first scheme to be established under the new legislation will be a national, industry-led television and computer recycling scheme, which is to be phased in from the end of 2011.
"These recent developments in Australia represent an example of positive cooperation between industry and Government. New Zealand is rapidly falling behind Australia and the rest of the world as the voluntary approach advocated by the New Zealand Government is simply not working, and the evidence we present in our report from other countries strongly suggests that voluntary schemes will never work for waste electronics," said Mr Zwimpfer.
"We hope the industry can demonstrate the same level of e-responsibility they are demonstrating in Australia," he continued.
The report launch also coincides with the news that eDay 2011 has been denied funding through the Government's Waste Minimisation Fund. The eDay Trust says that eDay is still needed to plug the gap while product stewardship schemes are put in place but without any central government support eDay can simply not proceed. "This is a huge blow to the 60 communities that participated in eDay last year and have been encouraging their citizens to store their ewaste for this year's event, that is now not likely to happen," said Mr Zwimpfer.
"While some ewaste collection options are emerging in the larger centres, most of these involve a charge to the person dropping off the equipment; a single CRT television or computer monitor can cost as much as $20. Our report makes it clear that any scheme that relies on users paying this level of charge on disposal is doomed to failure plus there still needs to be a service to smaller communities," said Mr Zwimpfer.
However Mr Zwimpfer says that the eDay Trust will continue to look for alternative ways to provide a free ewaste disposal service to communities until product stewardship is in place.
"We are already discussing a more distributed ‘eDay everyday' model with TES-AMM, a global recycling organisation, involving potentially hundreds of drop-off locations throughout New Zealand that will be free to the consumer at the time of disposal. This scheme will be substantially funded by suppliers, but at least initially, like eDay it will need to still rely on strong community and central government support," Mr Zwimpfer concluded.
The report, titled Ewaste in New Zealand: five years on, follows from e-Waste in New Zealand: taking responsibility for end-of-life computers and TVs, produced in 2006. Both reports can be downloaded from www.eday.org.nz.
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For further information please contact:
Laurence Zwimpfer, 027 430 6737, zwimpfer@xtra.co.nz
Or Lara Charles, 021 911 221, lara@eday.org.nz