e-Waste

Electronic waste, more generally known as e-waste, is one of the fastest growing waste streams in Australia and throughout the world.  Computers, televisions, printers, photocopiers and mobile phones that have reached end-of-life through being obsolete or broken are all examples of e-waste. 

To date, there has been little recycling of e-waste in Australia so most ends up in landfill where toxins in the e-waste, such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury, may leach out and contaminate the surrounding soil or groundwater and potentially cause health problems.

Many countries, including Australia, the United States, Japan and parts of Canada and Europe, have chosen to address the problem of e-waste through product stewardship. 

Product stewardship, as explained in Australia’s Product Stewardship Act 2011 (Cth) is “an approach to reducing the environmental and other impacts of products by encouraging or requiring manufacturers, importers, distributors and other persons to take responsibility for those products”. 

The Product Stewardship Act 2011 (Cth) (Act) and the Product Stewardship (Televisions and Computers) Regulations 2011 (Cth) (Regulations) provide for a co-regulatory product stewardship scheme (the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme), funded by industry, for recycling televisions, computers, printers and computer products.  The Regulations set targets for the percentage of this waste to be recycled each year – 30% of waste in 2012-13, rising progressively to 80% of waste in 2021-22.

The targets set in the legislation for the Scheme may be challenging to meet, given that in 2007-08, only 10% (by weight) of the 16.8 million televisions, computers and computer products (106,000 tonnes) that reached end of life were recycled, and the rate in 2011 was still only around 17%.  It is estimated that by 2028, 44 million televisions and computers (181,000 tonnes) would be disposed of in landfill each year if Australia did not have a collection and recycling scheme for e-waste. 

The safe and environmentally appropriate extraction of valuable materials, such as gold, copper and lead, from e-waste can be expensive.  In some instances, e-waste has been shipped to developing countries, such as Africa, China and India, for dismantling because occupational health and safety standards, labour costs and environmental standards are often lower there than in other countries.  In developing countries, e-waste recycling is often undertaken in unsafe conditions and the e-waste debris disposed of inappropriately.  The environment in these areas is often contaminated and local residents can suffer ill-effects from the pollution.

To date, one hundred and seventy-eight nations, including Australia, are party to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (Basel Convention), which entered into force in 1992.  Amongst other things, the Convention prohibits a party allowing exports of waste to a State when it has reason to believe that it will not be managed in an environmentally sound manner.  Thus, for example, “if the proposed destination does not have the appropriate technology to recycle electronic equipment in an environmentally sound manner, the State of export must not allow a shipment described as used computers for recycling to be shipped there”. 

Key Documents

Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘4613.0 – Australia’s Environment: Issues and Trends’, 2006.

Australian Government, Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, ‘National Waste Policy: National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme’.

Australian Government, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, ‘National Television and Computer Product Stewardship Scheme’, Issue 1, May 2010.

Australian Government, Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, ‘National Waste Policy: The Role of Recyclers in the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme’, Fact Sheet.

National Waste Report 2010, May 2010.

Hyder Consulting, Waste and Recycling in Australia: Amended Report, 19 November 2009.

Bryan Walsh, ‘E-Waste Not’, Time, 8 January 2009, online.

Natalie O’Brien, ‘Techno-trash Poses Dire Threat to Human Health’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 October 2011, online.

CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, ‘Asia’s e-waste pollution "may spread worldwide"’, Media Release, 12 September 2011.

Mary Westcott

General Distribution Research Team, Research and Information Service