[LINK] China Blocks Vital Exports to Japan - or not?

[Fernando Cassia]

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Tom Worthington
<tom.worthington at tomw.net.au> wrote:
> On 2010/Sep/25, at 6:41 PM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>> ... If all those rare minerals end up on landfills  ...
>
> There are some schemes in place for recycling of e-waste in Australia,
> including computers and mobile phones. Also e-waste is assumed to be
> "hazardous waste", so it is illegal to put it in landfill. It is also
> illegal to transport it across an international border, without a
> government licence.
>
> See the chapter "Materials Use" in my book "Green Technology
> Strategies", for more details:
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/green/materials.shtml>.

Thanks for the links Tom.

I was thinking more as a whole, not in the particular case of
Australia. H*ck, down here in South America we don´t even have
recycling of normal alkaline batteries or separation of household
waste between organic and recyclable materials, everything is mixed
and ends up in the same landfills, although a law was enacted to put
scheduled collection of resiential waste, but was resisted by city
governments using the high cost of such measure as an excuse not to
implement it.

Now, lately there´s been some discussion of making manufacturers (or
importers) ultimately responsible for the "final disposition"
(recycling or safe disposal) of electronics. That I think, is the only
solution that might work, long-term. There´s a EU-wide directive about
that, I believe.

Again, thanks for the links...
FC