Lynda Hong Ee Lyn Today Online 11 Oct 10;
SINGAPORE - Recyclers are calling for greater regulation to ensure unwanted electronic appliances, including used computer peripherals, are disposed properly.
Such junk - also known as electronic waste, or e-waste - could release toxic chemicals when incinerated or dumped into landfills, they pointed out.
Given the lack of collection points for e-waste in housing estates, recycling companies such as Cimelia rely on karung guni men to collect e-waste from households. But this forms only five to 10 per cent of e-waste collected every month. On average, Cimelia collects between 500 and 700 tons of e-waste each month, mainly from factories and companies.
Cimelia's director, Mr Venkatesha Murthy, said karung guni men would first try to refurbish all re-usable electronics and electrical appliances for resale in Singapore or export to other countries. They would then sell what they could not salvage to Cimelia.
Public waste collectors Veolia and SembWaste told MediaCorp that e-waste forms a small portion of recyclables collected from households, with SembWaste putting the proportion of e-waste figure at about one to two per cent. So, given Singaporeans' penchant for electronics products, where does the Republic's e-waste go?
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), the economic value in the materials recoverable from e-waste meant that there was "minimal" amount of such junk ending up at the incinerator or landfill.
But Mr Venkatesha pointed out that e-waste could be easily exported to other countries like China and Africa, as Singapore did not have a tracking system to trace where electronic products were disposed.
Recycling Point Dot Com founder Joseph Tan suggested a governing body such as NEA administer the funds to ensure the proper disposal of an electronics products.
Several countries, including Switzerland, Netherlands, Japan and Korea, have introduced Extended Producer Responsibility laws, which are based on the principle that producers should bear responsibility for all the environmental impacts of their products.
In Japan, consumers are required to return unwanted electronic appliances to the retailers and pay a national recycling fee and an additional fee to cover the retailers' transport costs to the collection point.
When asked if consumers would be charged for the collection and disposal of unwanted appliances, the NEA said it encouraged e-waste recovery efforts through second-hand dealers, voluntary take-back and recycling schemes implemented by several large IT and mobile phone companies.
The NEA's first nationwide e-waste take-back initiative on Sept 11 - which was held over one week - collected 3,600 kg of e-waste and small household appliances, which will be reused or dismantled for recycling.
