The Ontario Ministry of the Environment is still discussing its recent approval of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) programme, “an industry-developed plan under the Waste Diversion Act that aims to reduce e-waste across the province by placing financial responsibility on the companies who produce it”.
The Ministry reports that currently, a mere 27% of e-waste in Ontario is currently reused or recycled. The new WEEE plan aims to raise this number to 61% by 2014. To assist with the goal, the Ministry will increase drop off locations from 167 to 420 across the province.
The Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES) is responsible for implementing the plan in co-operation with Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO), a non-government corporation. OES is a not-for-profit industry organization operated by IT, retail, and consumer electronics firms.
WEEE currently addresses “Phase 1″ products, which include computers, monitors, printers, disk drives, keyboards, mice, fax machines and televisions.
“The provincial program is designed really as a public collective, so that no matter what the make or model, no matter if it’s been around for a long time, even if the manufacturer doesn’t exist anymore, you can take it back,” said Dalton Burger, president and CEO of Electronics Products Stewardship Canada.
“I think it’s important to recuperate historical equipment no matter the make or model because that’s the objective, to get this stuff out of landfills and deal with it properly and recover the material that we can,” said Burger.
For more information, visit: ec.gc.ca
|
|
