Secure destruction companies have become involved in product destruction in several ways. In some cases, owning shredders makes them ideal service providers for customers with excess merchandise to be destroyed and kept from entering unauthorized sales channels.
Information destruction companies that provide electronic data destruction services also serve corporations with off-lease and returned merchandise in large volumes.
In both cases, these services may merge with mandated recycling systems that have been enacted in several states and that are advocated by groups like the Product Stewardship Institute Inc. (PSI), based in Boston. The group is hosting a conference June 3-5 in Boston, with one of the topics being the recycling of electronics.
Scott Cassel started PSI in December of 2000. According to its Web site, "PSI works with state and local government agencies to partner with manufacturers, retailers, environmental groups, federal agencies and other key stakeholders to reduce the health and environmental impacts of consumer products." The organization’s work can include encouraging product design changes to facilitate recycling and mediating dialogues among various stakeholders.
"What we have created is a forum for the research and negotiation of new systems for managing and financing the sustainable way to manage products," Cassel says of PSI.
If computers and other data-bearing products continue to enter mandatory recycling systems, how should information destruction companies ensure that their critical role remains part of such systems?
Secure Destruction Business magazine Editor-in-Chief Brian Taylor asked PSI Executive Director and CEO Scott Cassel that question as well as several others during a recent interview.
SDB: How does your organization define product stewardship? Scott Cassel: Product stewardship is a principle that directs all those involved in the life cycle of a product to take shared responsibility for reducing the health and environmental impacts that result from the production, use and end-of-life management of the product.Everybody has a role, including government and consumers; but, manufacturers and retailers have the biggest opportunities to influence product stewardship.
SDB: Why is product stewardship the right way to handle obsolete electronics? SC: It’s the way to manage all products because it helps drive design changes. It addresses the need for sustainable funding. It brings all parties together to negotiate a solution where responsibility is shared, with particular responsibilities being assigned to manufacturers and retailers. Manufacturers are the ones that have the greatest opportunity, in part by designing products so they have less of an impact on the environment. Retailers are in direct contact with consumers, so they can play a key role in that way.Electronics are the first products on which this perspective has been focused here in the U.S. Producer responsibility systems started with packaging in Europe, and with WEEE (the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive) they addressed electronics.
Here in the United States, electronics were the most important from a waste management perspective.
SDB: Have manufacturers responded to these concerns? SC: Absolutely, in a big way manufacturers have responded. In electronics, during the national dialog NEPSI (National Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative), which was overseen by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), I saw a distinct change in the perspective of the electronics manufacturers.Originally they wanted the government to increase the funding of their programs. Little by little they moved to end-of-life fees, and then a monumental shift occurred to internalize the end-of-life cost into the product costs.
That effort started with the ARF (advanced recovery fee) system in California and now includes producer responsibility.
Thermostat and rechargeable battery makers have producer responsibility systems, though a little weak.
Our organization is working with many others to bring about a fundamental shift in how waste is managed. What I’m seeing is a change not only in companies, but entire industries, and that takes time.
SDB: Are there any manufacturers that can be singled out? SC: A number of the electronics manufacturers should be credited with the shift that has taken place over the past eight years. Originally, it was Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Philips that got some progress started by agreeing that the purchase price of a product should reflect the end-of-life management costs. But they all originally supported an ARF system. While ARFs were used for used motor oil and tires several decades ago as a financing mechanism, current systems in the United States have moved away from ARFs.HP, Dell and now Sony have moved toward individual producer responsibility systems. That has moved the ball more toward producer responsibility. These programs are more in line with systems that are taking hold in the United States now.
Still, it’s not a unified approach that yet works for the citizens with all companies. That’s the missing element right now. Even with these individual producer responsibility systems, it has not been worked out how they necessarily work together.
All this is moving in the right direction, but there is still more work to be done.
SDB: To what extent have data security and privacy concerns been factored into electronics product stewardship proposals? SC: Obviously, that is an issue, because companies are very concerned about data security. I think it affects the re-use end in particular. That is the preferable environmental use, but there are considerations when it comes to data security. They are not necessarily at odds with each other, but it can require extra attention. We want to find some way where re-use can be maximized but data security is present. SDB: To what extent does your organization prefer voluntary stewardship vs. legislatively mandated stewardship? SC: Voluntary systems don’t work. There are very few instances where voluntary systems have proven to be effective in a comprehensive manner. They can create some momentum. However it’s unfair to company leaders to spend the money and allocate resources to address a problem of design and end-of-life management without a level playing field.There needs to be a level playing field for all companies in the pursuit of environmental goals. And there needs to be a penalty for bad actors. The only way to ensure that is through negotiated, consensus-based legislation. And that’s PSI’s approach.
The legislation would need to work for all players. It will ensure their commitment to implementing solutions. And it will ensure a better solution by having all parties included.
SDB: Is the escalating cost of raw materials changing the way manufacturers view the value of end-of-life products? SC: Absolutely. I’ve heard people talk about current markets as moving into the secondary materials age. There is a great demand for secondary materials, particularly in China, where they are importing secondary materials from the United States.And as it becomes more expensive to extract primary materials from the environment, there is a greater demand to recover materials from products. That is impacting product stewardship. Part of that is not only design changes up front, but collection at the back end. If there is more value, there is more interest in maximizing the collection of those materials.
SDB: Do you have any concern that adding electronic scrap to the Universal Waste Rule would have unintended negative consequences for data security and recyclingefforts? SC: Bringing in electronics under Universal Waste would be a plus, because you would get greater environmental protection with reduced administrative costs. As long as the states have control over the management of material, which they would with the Universal Waste Rule, we can make it easier to transport and recycle material and at the same time reduce management costs. I think that’s a very good thing. SDB: How do retailers and existing data security and recycling firms fit into the product stewardship scenarios that you envision for electronics? SC: For the data security firms, I think they would give assurance to companies that collect equipment that it is managed in a way that does not compromise proprietary data; that’s important. It might lead to some knee-jerk reactions to recycle rather than re-use, but that needs to be resolved through
communication. SDB: What would electronics recyclers and data destruction professionals learn by attending your June event in Boston? SC: The conference is set up to address broad issues, such as performance goals, financial incentives and the retailer’s role in product stewardship, across many products. There is a session on the electronics regulations in the U.S.
We attract the top government and industry professionals working on product stewardship in the United States. All of these officials are working on electronics, so there will be networking opportunities to talk to those people who are working on electronics issues in their states. We’ll probably get representatives from more than 20 states at our conference. n
Scott Cassel is the executive director of the Boston-based Product Stewardship Institute and can be contacted at scott@productstewardship.us.
Explore the July 2008 Issue
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