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The reverse supply chain is becoming every bit as important as the traditional supply chain… only it's a lot more complex.
Here's a glimpse, courtesy of Fonebank, at some of the challenges in reclaiming used mobile devices, computers, and other electronics:
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I think the most effective way to address e-waste problem is for the government to hold the manufacturers liable for e-waste produced by the goods they sell. That way each manufacturer would have to plan for effective collection of e-waste as well as selling new products.
Government could motivate the companies to do this by giving tax relief which could be used by the companies to provide incentives to consumers to return their e-waste in exchange for some cash or discount on new products.
The way it would work efficiently is by coming up with beneifts to derive from it. Also, phone users attitude towards the e-waste and/or recycling should be sought out first prior to govs and mfgs agreements.
Such scheme has been in operational in my area in UK for a long time, this is not from manufacturers but a private firm dealing with recycling. Phone users arent turning up as expected despite cash -in offer for old phones.
Government must make minimum warranty 3 years for all consumer and industrial products. This way manufacturer designs and build much more reliable product and e-waste is reduced substaintially.
This is also true for printer and their cartridge. New printer cartridge must not exceed 25% of printer price. With lower cost cartridge, people will not throw away printer. I had to discard three inkjets and three laser printers in last five yeras.
This will also indirectly reduce lower cost and lower quality $ store, made in china products. They will be forced to build better quality and reliable products.
So far which are the companies that offer buyback scheme? I think I only know about Apple, Nokia.
@Brain, thanks for this informative graph. Lot of E-waste is being genearted because the replacement cycle has gone down drastically. End users want to upgrade their existing products even if the updates in the new product are minor. I feel end users should twice before investing in new products.
E-waste recycling is not only a huge social responsibility but also a good business venture. But what excatly happens when you get loads of Ewaste, whats the process of recycling and whats the final end product.
@tirlapur: You raise a great point. Do you think there will come a time when the replacement cycle will slow and this will become less of a problem? In other words, software upgrades will make a given hardware device “last longer”….?
These are the only two companies I know as well. However, this number has to increase. At least every mobile phone manufacturer should opt in because mobile phones have a very short usage life and get changed often. Laptop manufacturers should also be pushed to help the environment by recycling eWaste.