[LINK] Australian Whole of Government Computer Tender a Bit Green

[Tom Worthington]

Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> Tom Worthington wrote:
>> The Department of Finance and Deregulation has issued a Request for
>> Tender for a "Whole of Government Desktop Hardware (Computing Equipment)...
> anything about e-waste?

There appear to be no mandatory requirements on e-waste in the 
government's computer tender. But companies are asked to say how they 
rate on the Electronic Product Environment Assessment Tool (EPEAT), 
which has criteria for e-waste: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/green/materials.shtml>.

Also the agencies need to comply with laws on e-waste, particularly the 
Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989, which 
implements the Basel convention in Australia: 
<http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/hwoeaia1989548/>.

The law assumes that old electronic equipment is hazardous waste, until 
shown otherwise. You can't, legally, just ship bits of computers out of 
Australia to dump somewhere. You need a permit: 
<http://www.blis.act.gov.au/BLIS/prod/licence?licence=626&council=0>.

One loophole is that equipment to be re-used is not considered hazardous 
waste, so you can ship old computers out of Australia if they are going 
to be used as computers.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890