[ILUG-SOCIAL] Re: [ILUG] waste disposal (was surplus kit)

[Paul Jakma]

On Thu, 27 May 2004, John P. Looney wrote:

>  I had a slightly different experience. I brought the battery back
> (some effort, as it's a bitch to carry on a bike),

Well, I had driven there with flat battery, bought new one, changed
it in the parking lot and walked back in with dead battery. They took 
into the back of the shop, but i'll bet they just binned it.

"why do you want us to take it?"

"cause you can dispose of it properly"

"eh..."

> and the guy just threw it in the bin. I know that you can be jailed
> for dumping batteries in household waste, but has anyone ever been
> done for it ?

They should be. I was absolutely flabbergasted that a big shop
seemingly do not care about how they dispose of old batteries. (what
do they with old oil i wonder, pour it down the drain at the back 
of the shop?)
 
> The EU-wide law that'll force all electronics companies (or their
> resellers) to take back all old kit hasn't happened yet.

Damn, so I cant make Niall take back his SCSI disks? :) (I'd have
thought he'd be glad to have them, given how SCSI automatically
polishes and gold-plates bits before storing them).

> And it won't be retrospective when it does come in. But, we already
> have one for oil and batteries.

What is the law here btw?
 
In the Netherlands you can bring oil, batteries and (iirc) tyres to
essentially an garage and they have to take it. Also, each town will
usually have a council provided waste collection area for large
amounts of recyclable waste and disposal of hazardous waste
(batteries, etc) and other special classes of waste which must not be
disposed of in household waste. Also, the cost of general waste
disposal is quite high[1], so it's in the consumers' interests to
recycle as much as possible and consider packaging/recyclability of
products in purchasing decisions.

They're showing ads on TV the last while about the need to reduce
waste - the one where they show waste flowing over a street - but
what's the bets that in a year's time nothing much will have actually
been done?

> John

1. not sure of the details, but reasonably sure it's structured to
put incentive on recycling.

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
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