by Wyatt Walter

Created on: August 06, 2009

Ultimately, it does not matter who is deemed 'responsible' to pay for disposing of electronics. If the manufacturer is going to be charged for disposal of an electronic, they will simply pass the cost on to consumers as markup on the products or directly as fees. Either way, the consumer will pay without any choice in disposal method and leaves very little room for innovation as they've already paid for disposal anyway. We may as well give the consumer some freedom and choice in the matter.

If manufacturers are required to pay the fees (and pass the fees along to consumers in turn), they will just mark the cost up to make a little more money, just like they mark up the cost of manufacturing. Also, as you add requirements by governments to enforce such policies, the cost to the consumer simply keeps going up.

Keeping the cost at the consumer level makes them conscious of the direct costs. If we can keep consumers conscious of their decisions in a much more tangible way, it forces them to make better decisions when purchasing products. When they vote with their dollar and choose better products for the environment and for their pocket books, the better products and companies will rise to the top.

Another reason that I am convinced that we should let the consumer take care of the disposal fees directly is that it forces consumers to realize direct environmental and financial costs associated with owning electronics. Manufacturers do not create markets for their products. Consumers create markets. If consumers are creating demand for a product that is particularly expensive to dispose of without realizing the implications, they will keep demanding those products. As responsibility is passed down and troubles are encountered, consumers will think twice about purchasing those products.

One argument to this viewpoint that I can think of would be consumers who try to get by without paying disposal fees by sneaking electronics into regular trash. While this is certainly a risk, it will become less and less of a problem as people become aware of the environmental impact that improperly disposing of electronics has. When consumers start realizing that this is becoming a problem, they will become creative. People are actually pretty good problem solvers. Who knows? Maybe being forced into paying fees will cause someone to invent a new way of recycling electronics that is cheaper and better on the environment.

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