The 140,000-tonne problem

Warren Overton is the chief executive of the Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform, which operates TechCollect, a national program that provides e-waste drop-off, collection and recycling services. It runs the back end of Officeworks’ disposal-unit operation.

Overton defines e-waste as anything that has a plug or batteries. While it’s easy to think of this simply in terms of office equipment, much of our e-waste is made up of items we would normally throw in the bin without a second thought.

“It can be your reclining armchair. It could be the Christmas card that plays a little jingle, because it has a little battery and a speaker on it. It’s huge when you start looking at it that way,” he says.

The recycling platform operates as part of the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, which mandates that major hardware producers — Apple, Canon, Dell, Fuji, HP and many more — take responsibility for a product even after the end of its life cycle. Under federal legislation (specifically, the Product Stewardship Act 2011), these companies are required to pay the Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform to collect and recycle products on their behalf.

However, the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme covers only about 15 per cent of all e-waste generated in Australia. “We only cover televisions, computers, printers, monitors and the peripherals that go with computers,” Overton says.

The other 85 per cent — made up of everything from white goods like fridges and washing machines, to electric toothbrushes and Google Home Minis — accumulates in landfill, with damaging consequences for our environment and even our mental and reproductive health.

“Electronic equipment often contains a large range of metals, some of which can be hazardous — heavy metals like lead, mercury and arsenic, for example, and persistent organic pollutants like brominated flame retardants,” says the CSIRO’s Industrial Biotechnology Group leader, Dr Anna Kaksonen, who co-authored a recent paper on e-waste.

It’s not the kind of stuff we want in the natural environment. “The contaminants can accumulate in the food chain and cause various problems [to] thyroid function, lung function, reproductive health, as well as mental health.”

‘Chicken and egg situation’

Overton is leading a campaign to have the recycling scheme expanded to encompass the remaining 85 per cent of e-waste. It doesn’t help that Australia has something of a patchwork approach to electronic recycling; Victoria, the ACT and South Australia have banned the dumping of e-waste in landfill, though Overton questions how this is actually enforced.

The good news, he says, is that the federal government appears to be tackling this issue: the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment  has  led a consultation process to come up with better solutions.

But even perfect policy settings can’t exist in a vacuum. “It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing,” Overton says. “If the demand is not there, the recycling doesn’t happen. If we produced recycled plastic and no one wanted it, it could end up in landfill.

“So it is important to make sure you buy recycled products to keep the circular economy going.”

For Hunter, consumer awareness, or the lack thereof, is at the heart of the issue. She’s observed greater enthusiasm around sustainability since the Black Summer bushfires, yet customers seem surprised to learn about their “Bring it Back” disposal program.

“I think once people are aware, there’s a real willingness to do it,” she says. Australians who want to walk the walk on climate change need to be responsible for their e-waste, she believes. “People don’t often connect those dots. E-waste has an impact on climate change, and is something we can all do.”

Other than the Officeworks disposal units, other methods include finding your nearest drop-off point. Planet Ark has a database of these locations via RecyclingNearYou. Don’t live near any? You can mail it for a flat fee.

“It’s not hard,” Overton says. “There are options out there.”