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Japan Introduces Consumer-Paid Computer Recycling
Azuma writes "According to the Japan Times, starting Wednesday, new Japanese legislation takes effect that compels personal computer manufacturers to collect used PCs from households and recycle their parts, with consumers footing the bill, which will total anywhere from 3,000 yen ($28) to 4,000 yen ($37). So from today onwards, if you buy a new computer in Japan, your new computer should have a new logo besides commercial ones such as Intel Inside... 'Recycling Fee Prepaid'."
It's just another way that the Japanese government has found to stifle the already depressed economy. Raise the prices of computers and you will put a lid on future computer sales growth in the foreseeable future.
Ever live in Japan? There is simply no room for keeping all your old stuff. Incidentally, when I was there in 1987-88 there was a Japan Times article about people (usu. us gaijin) furnishing there entire apt with stuff from the gomi, i.e. trash on the curb. We're talking fully functional stereo equipment - simply because the old owners had no room to keep old stuff around.
There is no off postion on the genius switch. - David Letterman
just have to see how it works out.
actually NHK had a lil program this morning (morning in JP) showing one of the recycling plants and how they recycle - basically smash everything with little hammers and separate (to a degree) the metal from the plastic from the PCB from the rubber sheets (keyboard) etc.
they also smash the ICs for some reason, probably because when it melts in the pot the molten silicon would trickle through (pure and absolute speculation)...
This creates jobs (though mundane), and helps with waste - japan is not known for having a lot of area for landfills; so as long as things get recycled (instead of, say, shipped to china), I am cool with it.
Though it would change the recycle shops (read: used stuff shops) business model on old computers... maybe it becomes cheaper to sell your old PC to a recycle shop? Would the recycle shops be totally fscked because they have a collection of junk PC sitting around?
Heck, my company has an array of junk PCs (actually, Pentium II class, which I am amazed that they are tossing out) sitting around. Maybe they will be sitting around a lot longer now that it costs money to dispose... hmm...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
If Japan is so upset about people tossing computers away instead of recycling them, why not charge customers more for hauling away the computer as trash instead of mandating them to send them back to manufacturers? These companies ought to be paying the consumers for their (recyclable) merchandise anyway since parts can be stripped from a few obselete comps and used to rebuild a less obselete one. Personally I think it would be better all around: computers would be recycled instead of tossed, consumers could get paid for recycling the parts, and companies could turn over a profit by reselling the parts as rebuilt comps. Anyone have any other ideas/thoughts on this?
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
This isn't exactly new. Taiwan has been doing this since July 1998.
0 72 1b6.html
"The Environmental Protection Administration has decided in principle to require mandatory recycling of computer printers from January next year.
EPA officials said a disposal fee of NT$154 to NT$195 will be imposed on each obsolete printer, depending on model. The move is expected to force up the retail price of printers on the domestic market.
Total sales of printers are estimated to reach 1.29 million in Taiwan each year. The EPA aims to recall 435,000 for recycling each year from 2001.
Meanwhile, the EPA plans to sharply slash the fees for waste desktop and notebook computers because the special fund collected for recycling in Taiwan since June 1988 has now resulted in a surplus of NT$260 million."
http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/20000721/2000
The Intel stickers (if left on) get rubbed until it's just a big silver patch. The Windows sticker (not the registration sticker) is either removed or mutilated by various people. All but the most extreme of the service and license stickers (such as Windows XP) get rubbed to oblivion as well.
Now there will be another sticker on the laptop, and rather than it saying "recycle fee pre-paid" it will just be yet another big white blob.
frob
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
I think this could work, but sort of like it already does here... what about, they tack on this extra charge on the sale, and then you get some or all of that back IF you recycle? You would have to have a machine that you paid the amount on (Receipt or what-have-you to prove that you did), but if so, take it in for recycling, get $20 or whatever... people are more likely going to do that than without any final incentive... and if you throw it away, well, you loose that money then.
A subject that really hits close to home for me right now since I am about to move back to the states from Tokyo. I'll tell you what getting rid of old stuff here is very expensive undertaking.
Its hard to sell stuff because since most of us here don't own cars transportation to would be buyers is a difficult proposition. I have a perfectly good 27" TV, washer/dryer, fridge, stereo, air conditioning unit (air conditioning is almost always wall mounted in Japan and generally speaking even if one is included with the apartment it isn't stong enough to cool/heat the whole place), 5 computers, and various shelving. It will cost me about $500 per cubic meter to ship stuff back so I'm obviously not going to ship the older/bigger stuff back. Unfortunately unless I can sell it to someone who is willing to pick it up, I am going to have to pay a fair amount of money to throw it away.
I figure everything said, and done it will cost me about $300-$500 to throw out the stuff I can't ship. This situation leads to a lot of illegal dumping, and I really think this built in recycle tax is the way to go.
--wyn
If you live in Hawaii in the United States, you're subject to quite similar problems. Everything costs more because things have to be imported. Land is at a premium, so you can't just go buy a plot of empty land and build your new house on it - like you could at a reasonable price, say, in the Midwestern continental U.S.
Recycling is sort of a pet-peeve of mine, though. It's not that I'm against recycling. I think it's very sensible. The problem is, the end user/customer usually gets saddled with its costs, and doesn't see a direct benefit from it.
EG. Take the hype about "the energy used to create a single aluminum soda can being enough power to run your home for 30 minutes". Yeah, that's an impressive figure and all - but if I recycle (at my time and expense), do you really think the energy I save Pepsi or Coca-Cola will come back to me, the consumer, in the form of price cuts on soda? Much more likely, any savings goes into the owner's pockets.
If a manufacturer chooses to build products that can cause problems if they aren't recycled, it seems like it should be part of THEIR responsibility to cover the costs. As it stands now, they can crank out products (like CRTs with lead in the glass) without a care in the world. The customer ends up suffering if he/she needs to dispose of it a few years later, and finds out the local trash people designated it as "hazardous waste" and won't take it.
Sounds reasonable to me, as long as the money actually pays (ultimately) to disassemble the computer and reuse the materials or components.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
... and here's why:
I live in Japan now. Going to work every day, I pass by several "auto graveyards". These are just empty spots (usually an area cut out of the forested hills) where people park their cars and leave them, rather than pay to have them taken away properly. Used cars are a liability that no one wants, and you can often get a used car for free (or less than $100) at a dealership. One can also see piles of old furniture, steel drums, electronics and other assorted odds and ends.
When it costs $50 to legally get rid of a TV, most people are going to just dump it somewhere instead. I see no reason why this won't happen with computers, and result in the various tasty bits (lead, etc) leeching into the groundwater.
Just out of curiosity, how do you handle people who build their own system? Do you add a recycling surcharge onto each component? Attach the $37 fee to every new CPU? Require that they take care of paying the charge themselves? Or do you just assume that the number of people building their own is small enough that it doesn't matter?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
If you're living in Japan, I suggest purchasing this money saving device: a sledgehammer. I've smashed up three old pieces of furniture into pieces small enough to be placed into trashbags that were then hauled away free of charge. And on top of saving money, it's a great way to relieve some of the stress you accumulate while riding rush-hour trains, getting bitched out by your bucho, etc.
We have paid such a fee for all electrical appliances the past few years. If your TV is to be scrapped, you just have to go to a shop that sells TVs and give it to them. You don't have to buy anything there, and you don't even need to have bought it there in the first place. Buy anywhere, return anywhere. The fee is much smaller, approx $10.
For all products, not just computers.
Why is it that when I buy a mcdonalds lunch I pay for the lunch, then I (as a taxpayer) pay for the landfill their disposable (and questionably useful) materials fill up? Why do I pay for a monitor then pay for the lead shielding and toxic metals to be properly disposed of?
Why not require mcdonalds to pay the cost of disposal? Why not require huggies to pay the cost of disposal? Why not require Dell to pay for the cost of disposal? Why not require every manufacturer to pay the cost of disposal for their packaging - heck, lets force them to make everything strictly either recyclable or biodegradable.
Economically incentivize them to make useful, recyclable or biodegradable packaging. The prices for us would raise what? a couple pennies, maybe a nickle? In the meantime we could end the ridiculous land fill phenomenon.
Why do we continue giving corporations all the desireable rights of individuals, but deny them any of the responsibilities?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"