67 countries deal responsibly with e-waste – New Zealand is not one

Monday, 2 December 2024

Responsible e-waster recycling ensures plastic and metals in end-of-life devices are re-used.

New Zealand is not among the 67 countries listed by the United Nations as having e-waste policies and schemes.

But Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds says she’s taking advice from officials on getting work started again on establishing a domestic e-waste product stewardship scheme, and will be “setting priorities” over the coming months.

E-waste is a growing international problem as a result of society’s ever-deepening dependence on mobile phones, computers and entertainment devices, but there has been increasing disquiet in the recycling and re-manufacturing industry that progress on responsibly dealing with end-of-life devices has stalled in New Zealand.

The latest estimates in the UN’s fourth E-waste Monitor report suggest around 62 million tonnes of e-waste were produced in 2022 globally, and that only around a fifth was reliably documented as being collected and recycled.

It’s estimate for New Zealand is much, much worse.

“Unconfirmed reports estimate that around 80m kilograms of e-waste is produced in New Zealand annually, with less than 1% being sent for recycling and the remainder going into landfills,” the fourth E-waste Monitor says.

Silverdale business Greenbox is 'remanufacturing' computers and devices, reducing e-waste destined for landfills

The country’s largest e-waster recycler and reclaimer is Echo Technology in Auckland, and its founder, Patrick Moynahan, thinks it would be closer to around 5% being recycled, or re-manufactured.

Since launching in 2017 Echo Technology, which collects e-waste from the public as well as from large organisations like Sky New Zealand, has grown by thousands of percent, Moynahan said.

It would continue to invest and grow in anticipation of a product stewardship being launched in around three years’ time.

But that’s just a best guess. “There’s no time line currently,” he said. “It’s just moving very slow.”

It’s now 10 years since the Ministry for the Environment started work on an e-waste stewardship scheme under then-Prime Minister Sir John Key, and nearly 20 since the first public consultations in which people told politicians an e-waste scheme was needed.

Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds. Despite the importance of her ministry, she is not in cabinet.

Since the 2014 public consultation on which damaging waste products should be considered highest priority, which highlighted the growing toll on the environment of e-waste, there have been eight changes of government, including the three involving the Green Party from October 2017 to November 2023.

The planned e-waster product stewardship scheme would embed the cost of handling e-waste into the price paid by consumers for it, just as the Tyrewise product stewardship scheme now collects levies on the roughly 6.5m tyres imported into the country each year to fund more responsible disposal.

Simmonds said: “I am receiving advice from the Ministry for the Environment on the wider waste work programme, including product stewardship schemes for priority products.”

She said in June last year, before the current Government came to power, a taxpayer-funded report with recommendations for a scheme was published, funded with $320,000 from the Waste Minimisation Fund

The UN estimates that annual global e-waste volumes would fill 1.55 million 40-tonne trucks, roughly enough trucks to form a bumper-to-bumper line encircling the equator.

However, she said: “TechCollect NZ advised that further work was needed to finalise the scheme design.”

“The Ministry for the Environment is working with industry and stakeholders on the next steps,” she said.

However, Simmonds said: “Since 2015, the WMF has granted $4,342,740 towards 16 projects that include solutions for e-waste.

“The funded projects include redirecting corporate e-waste to community groups; expanded e-waste collection and recycling services; and purchasing machinery to process e-waste.”

It’s not only New Zealand that has an e-waste problem.

The UN said a significant amount of e-waste was stockpiled on Pacific islands and awaiting further handling.

But New Zealand was doing far worse than Australia which is the only country in the South Pacific with specific legislation covering e-waste management, the UN said.

It’s first e-waste product stewardship scheme was established in 2011.

Its National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme saw 50.5m kg of televisions and computers collected in the 2020/21 year.

The Australian mobile recycling programme, MobileMuster, has around 3000 public drop-off points.

Even though development of a New Zealand e-waste scheme has been slow, many private companies are endeavouring to ensure their e-waste doesn’t end up in landfills.

Moynahan said larger businesses were being increasingly required to report on their environmental impacts. That had seen them focus on making sure their e-waste didn’t end up being sent to landfill.

Echo Technology is contracted to responsibly handle the recycling of Sky New Zealand’s no-longer needed Sky boxes.