Last week I joined the ABC TV News Breakfast team to discuss the growing e-waste challenge following Amazon’s decision to end tech support for functional Kindle devices bought before 2012.
However, the issue goes far beyond forced obsolescence of one product! Australians are strong consumers of technology, but struggle with poor systems for repair, reuse and recycling. Australia is now one of the world’s highest generators of electronic waste per person.
In the interview I discussed:
• why functioning devices are increasingly becoming obsolete through software and platform decisions, and awful trends to 2030
• the extraordinary material and energy value embedded in electronic products
• Australia’s disappointingly high rates of disposal to landfill
• the growing global movement toward “right to repair” laws
• and why better Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws are urgently needed in Australia.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Globally, more than 80 countries now require manufacturers to take greater responsibility for the repair, collection and recycling of products at end of life. But Australia still lags behind.
Our current national e-waste framework, introduced in 2011, remains unchanged and limited in scope while other countries have expanded producer responsibility systems across a wide range of products for the benefit of households and small businesses.
This is not just an environmental issue, it is a productivity, resource security and economic resilience issue. Every phone, tablet, battery and device we buy contains finite mined materials, manufacturing effort and embedded carbon. Its time we regulate for EPR so we can easily and at low cost repair and recycle!
