Extended Producer Responsibility in EUROPE and NEXT the world.

Extended Producer Responsibility in EUROPE and NEXT the world.
“Incompatibility of chargers for mobile phones is a major inconvenience for users and also leads to unnecessary waste. Therefore, the Commission has requested industry to come forward with a voluntary commitment to solve this problem so as to avoid legislation. As a result major producers of mobile phones have agreed to harmonize chargers in the EU. In a Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”), which was submitted to the Commission today, the industry commits to provide chargers compatibility on the basis of the Micro-USB connector. In addition new EU standards to ensure continued safe charger use will be developed to facilitate the implementation of the MoU. The first generation of new inter-chargeable mobile phones should reach the EU market from 2010 onwards.”
This is one of the brightest ideas concerning Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
Producers always want to make their products as cheap as possible, specially in the consumer electronics, making as much profit as they can. With the philosophy in mind, managers force designers to pass the cost reductions to all components of the product, specially in the materials that are chosen to make it. This causes that cheap and non recyclable materials like mercury, lead and others to end up in our every day electronics. To add to this, the relatively short life span of our electronic goods force us to buy, more often than necessary, electronic goods. All of these wrong decisions made by the producer (short lifespan of the product and cheap non recyclable materials) added to our constant need to buy the latest technology, has created a tsunami of electronic trash, that fills our trash dumps with hazardous materials.

To fight this, an important regulation have had some impact like the RoSH but most of the regulation only covers Europe, and you as a outsider of the EU can still buy a cheaper good with the same quality for a few Euros less.
But what if the producer instead of selling you their product, they rented it?
This will force them to take care of the waste produced by their product, thus making them more sensible to the non-recyclable components. Also creating a competitive advantage for the companies that not only comply with the future regulation, but also the ones that can take profit in the recycling process. So if the regulation passes, radioactive materials, lead, mercury and other will not be seen in in the future (Good new for all).
I wanted to post the news, basically because cell phone now days with is short life spam, it’s one of the primary product that contributes to the environmental problem. Also the new voluntary regulation can cause a domino effect. Essentially Europe is one of the biggest markets in cell phones and enterprises are not going to waste time and money designing one product to Africa, other to Latin America and other minor markets and that way they become a second hand regulators.
I hope that European Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen can keep that splendid job and that’s the first step we need to a cleaner world.
You can read the whole news in English at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1049&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en read the 30 of June of 2009 at GMT-5.