E-Waste in Canada
The increasing use of electronic products by consumers and businesses today and their high turnover rate, in response to demands for new technology, has led to an explosion of electronic waste in Canada. This waste stream has received a lot of attention around the world due to the impact of electronic waste on the environment and human health. Like the European Union (and other European countries), US, Japan, South Korea, and a number of other countries, Canada has implemented its own programs for managing electronic waste.
Canadian E-waste legal landscape
Canada has set forth electronic waste laws mandating product stewardship by Province. Since Canada does not have federal waste laws for this type of activity, acceptance and implementation of the provincial electronic waste laws has caused some deviation of scope and timelines.
Each law sets forth the requirements of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPS). EPS places the responsibility on industry to finance the collection and treatment of their market share's worth of waste.
Currently, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan have implemented programs (Prince Edward Island expected in July) to collect and treat electronic waste on behalf of obligated companies. These EPS programs, except for Alberta, are based on the qualifications set forth by Electronic Product Stewardship Canada (EPSC). EPSC is a non-profit organization founded by leading Canadian electronics companies.
Products under scope of the provincial electronic waste laws include televisions, computers, computer accessories, monitors, printers, laptops, telephones, answering machines, cellular phones, AV devices, etc.
It is evident that the focus is on electronics that have a high turnover, as these products are a large contributor to the waste stream. It is expected that the scope of these laws shall increase in implemented stages to include additional product categories as the programs mature.
Provincial E-waste costs
All of these programs require that the responsible company pay a fee per product on behalf of the programs that collect and treat the electronics after they have reached their end-of-life. The fee also takes into account historical waste that will be collected by the same programs. This allows customers to drop off their old electronics free of charge at designated collection points.
Retailers, distributors and brand owners all share some of the burden, but the majority of the responsibility will be directed to the retailers as they are the ones that, in most cases, providing the electronics to the customer. The law requires that the obligated company pays the fee to the provincial systems through registration and reporting mechanisms, but it is also the obligated company's responsibility to collect that fee from the consumers and make it known at the point of purchase.
The fee set forth by the provincial EPS programs has a large range, depending on the covered electronic product. For example, display devices (computer monitors and televisions) range from $9.25 (Saskatchewan) to $40.00 (Nova Scotia). There are a variety of reasons for the differences in costs. The designated fee can be attributed to the total cost of the logistical operation of maintaining collection points, transportation to treatment centres, plus the actual recovery process through recycling, reuse, incineration and various other techniques. The majority of the provincial programs abide by EPSC's Recycling Standards.
This cost is then offset by the value of the recovered materials. Due to the economic crisis in 2009, the value of recovered materials has been quite low in response to the decreased demand for commodity products. This has led to some electronic waste fee increases. As the market recovers and recovery infrastructure matures, it can be ascertained that the fees will decrease over time. An example of lower fees would be systems such as the long standing Belgian system Recupel that charges an electronic waste fee of one (1) Euro per television. Recupel has been acting as Belgium's approved electronic waste collection and treatment program since 2001 and therefore has had many more years to develop their system compared to the Canadian provincial systems.
Canadian E-waste compliance
Canadian companies that are involved with the sale of electronic devices must review their product lines (including all accessories and accompanying products) to ensure that they are not in breach of provincial waste laws. The review should include a categorization of scope to determine inclusion/exclusion of responsibilities.
If the electronic product falls under scope of one or all provincial electronic waste systems, then the seller must identify if they are the obligated company for financing the collection and treatment of their electronic waste within the respective systems. Failure to do so could lead to enforcement and penalties derived from the powers of the provincial waste laws.
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