World Recycling Forum: EPR Middle Ground

As the head of environmental management for the Asia Pacific and Japan region for Hewlett-Packard (HP), Annukka Dickens has become familiar with many different extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems for obsolete electronics.

In a presentation at the World Recycling Forum, held in Hong Kong in mid-November, Dickens offered an overview of some of the more common system set-ups, as well as the view from a large OEM such as HP about what works and what doesn’t.

Dickens said centrally managed systems, in which collectors and recyclers are directly subsidized for the obsolete items they handle, are “typically well-intended and work well with technology that is fairly uniform.”

However, she added, because electronic scrap can have such a broad definition in some jurisdictions—from refrigerators to cell phones—this can end up subsidizing forms of recycling that don’t really require the funding.

Dickens also critiqued systems for rewarding the volume handled by a recycler, but not necessarily rewarding efficiency or processing improvements.

Systems managed directly by OEMs can work in some cases, said Dickens, but often break down from a lack of cooperation by OEMs if some feel they are shouldering a greater burden than their competitors. “How do you divide the costs?” is often the question that drags down these systems, she noted.

Dickens then said there is a “hybrid” model that has proven the most effective. In this system, the government “sets objectives, supervises and reviews the reports,” she said, but OEMs work with recyclers and collectors to determine how the funds flow through the system.

This hybrid model, said Dickens, is flexible and “lets different products be recycled differently.” She said the model is in place in South Korea and has been proposed in Malaysia and Vietnam.
In such systems, electronic scrap volumes grow, as do profit margins for the best collectors and recyclers, often meaning “there is no need for subsidies long-term,” according to Dickens.

Dickens said she is optimistic that the momentum for incentive-driven electronics recycling will continue to build. “Raw material price hikes will make use of recycled material more appealing, [thus] fostering e-scrap collection and recycling in a competitive market,” she stated.

The 2011 World Recycling Forum, hosted by ICM AG, was Nov. 15-18 in Hong Kong.