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Greenman sparks environment fear
The Greenman group has urged OP companies to up the ante on the recycling of printer cartridges fearing the UK government may open the door for OEMs to devastate the industry. According to Greenman group marketing manager James Neill, adoption of the government paper’s interpretation on the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) EU directive could irreparably damage the recycling of printer cartridges. He believed it could lead “to the loss of 2,000 jobs in the next five years” as well as “destroy the environment by failing to re-use thousands of tonnes of plastics and metals, and reduce consumer choice”.
The issue centred more on a lack of clarity in the government’s discussion paper on article 4 of WEEE concerning the precise nature of a consumable.
Article 4 instructs member states to encourage better design of electrical and electronic equipment to facilitate re-use, recovery and recycling which, said Neill, “is great news for the remanufacturing industry and would, for example, prevent OEMs from using smart chips or prebate schemes to limit the re-use of their printer cartridges”.
However, the government paper said “this article does not relate to consumables such asvideotapes, computer disks”, an omission which Neill feared the OEMs might seize upon.
“The OEMs could claim ink and toner cartridges are a consumable exempting them from recycling. All stakeholders in the industry, including suppliers, distributors, dealers, employees and customers, [must] actively encourage the government to safeguard the future of the remanufactured printer cartridge.”
Greenman Group is a member of the UK Cartridge Recyclers Association.
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