Those with Toshiba laptops which they no longer use can now take advantage of the firm´s trade-in scheme, offering sums of up to £150 for WEEE which would otherwise go to landfill.

Although the initiative plans to get unused laptops refurbished and resold, those which are unsalvageable can still offer raw material for a future product through WEEE recycling methods.

Toshiba Say:
” A leading global citizen, Toshiba products are compatible with the strict standards set by these world-recognized directives:

WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Protects the environment by promoting the reuse, recycling and recovery of electronic materials.

RoHS (Restriction on Hazardous Substance Standard) Seeks to reduce the use of manufacturing substances that harm human health or the environment.

The products we take back for trade-in and recycling, including covered electronic devices, will not be disposed of in landfills or transferred to computer equipment recycling facilities that dispose of covered devices in landfills other than necessary incidental despoil in de minimis amounts.

The result? We’ve kept tons of toxic chemicals and other substances out of the ecosystem. ”

The energy giant will offer £400 off a new boiler when you replace one over 10 years old.

The announcement follows yesterday’s Pre-Budget Report, where the Chancellor stated a Government initiative to recycle old boilers would begin next year (see the PBR: Boiler scrappage scheme MSE News story).

The Government scheme will offer households up to £400 off new boilers when replacing a ‘G-Rated’ appliance, which is the least efficient type.

Npower says that once the Government initiative gets underway you’ll qualify for £800 off a new boiler if your appliance matches the criteria for both schemes and you apply via Npower.

A new boiler could cost anything from £600 to £3,000, depending on the model.

Full details of how this will work have yet to be announced.

Westminster says its plan will help 125,000 households replace old appliances.

Charging consumers an upfront fee to cover the eventual cost of recycling the electronics they buy also encourages people to use their devices longer and gives manufacturers more time to develop better products, according to researchers at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Such fees could provide a powerful strategy for reducing e-waste, which today comes to a staggering one million tonnes a year.

One of the causes of that problem is simply that innovation happens so quickly. As soon as a new electronic device comes onto the market, people scramble to replace their old ones, ditching mobile phones, digital cameras and laptops by the millions each year. On average, for example, Europeans buy a new mobile phone every 15 months and US consumers replace theirs every 18 months. In device-crazy Japan, the replacement cycle is even shorter: every nine months.

Tossed into the trash, these discarded devices often make their way to developing countries, where they are picked apart for the valuable metals they contain, creating dangerous pollution for people and the environment at the same time. That’s even sometimes the fate for electronics sent to recyclers by conscientious consumers.

Slowing the electronics replacement cycle could eliminate much of that waste, according to Erica Plambeck at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Qiong Wang of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Laboratories. They’ve found that government regulations — such as the recycling fee charged upon buying new electronics in California — can provide an effective means of achieving that goal.

“Certain forms of regulation slow the rate of new product introduction and mitigate the so-called ‘Osborne effect,’ said Plambeck. The ‘Osborne effect’ was coined after Osborne Computer, which developed the first portable computer, announced it was developing a new, improved version … causing sales of its existing product to plummet and driving the firm into bankruptcy.

The same effect continues to plague electronics makers today: the moment word leaks out that a new and better performing product is in the works, consumers become less willing to purchase products already on the shelf.

However, adding an upfront recycling fee for such products can help to reduce that effect.”When this additional cost to consumers is added at the beginning of the product life cycle, a ‘new equilibrium’ is established,” Plambeck said. “Manufacturers are in less of a rush to introduce new products. Consumers anticipate using a product for longer, and so are willing to pay more for it.”

She continued: “Because manufacturers have additional development time, they can make larger leaps in both product capabilities and quality, so the new products coming out are substantially better than the previous generation.”

As the Independent splashed on its front page morning, Greenpeace has shed new light on UK electronic waste - such as old TVs and computers - being illegally dumped in Nigeria.

We know that Lagos in Nigeria and Accra in Ghana are both infamous dumping grounds for toxic European electronic waste disguised as secondhand goods. Thanks to the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper we know that roughly three-quarters of computers sent from the US to Nigeria for reuse are beyond repair and end up being dumped. And we know that electronic waste in the UK is growing three times faster than other types of waste.

Here’s what Greenpeace did:

“Acting on a tip-off, we launched our operation to see just where some electronic waste was ending up. We took an unfixable TV, fitted it with a tracking device and brought it to the UK’s Hampshire county council for recycling. Instead of being safely dismantled in the UK or Europe, like it should have been, the council’s ‘recycling’ company, BJ Electronics, passed it on as ’secondhand goods’ and it was shipped off to Nigeria to be sold or scrapped and dumped.”

They’ll also provide a service whereby customers can donate used working computers to non-profit organisations. They will accept any brand of machine for the service.
You should visit the manufacturer’s website to find out more about these programs:

- Apple
- Dell
- HP
- Lexmark

If your printer still has useful life it could be reconditioned to be resold, or donated to a charity organisation for reuse. If the printer has reached the end of its useful life as a unit it could be dismantled and components recovered to be reused in other printers to be reconditioned.

The plastic, metals and circuit boards will all be removed to be processed with further recycling procedures, these will be sent off to be melted down and reused.

There are many companies in the UK which can help you with recycling your printer or that can you can donate your old printer to where it can be sent off to be used by someone else (usually in another country).

We aim to cover the recycling processes in more detail in the future if there is enough interest.  We will also look at the recycling of printer cartridges in a future article.

The WEE Directive aims to both reduce the amount of electrical and electronic equipment being produced and to encourage everyone to reuse, recycle and recover it.

The WEEE Directive also aims to improve the environmental performance of businesses that manufacture, supply, use, recycle and recover electrical and electronic equipment.

If you are an importer, rebrander or manufacturer of new electrical or electronic equipment then it’s likely that you’ll need to comply with the UK’s WEEE Regulations, which in part implement the WEEE Directive. If you do need to comply, then you must register on a producer compliance scheme.

You may also have obligations under the WEEE Regulations if you are a business with electrical or electronic equipment to dispose of, or if you sell electrical or electronic equipment.

Source: Environment Agency
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/waste/32084.aspx