carlsson wrote:Honestly I don't know if other countries in the European Union follow the same regulations. Perhaps they don't do today but will in the future. Bah for all this recycling junk and environmental thinking. If we have survived several thousand years without paying much attention to recycling, why do we need to start now?
Oh, I'm all for recycling... didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'd say it's important now more than ever because for the past 148,000 "non-recycling" years or so as members of the species Homo Sapiens, we have rarely produced toxic chemicals with any degree of regularity or in large degree. However, starting with the past two thousands years we have begun to do just that.
Here are some reasons to recycle, US-specific but it may give you a better idea of the importance of recycling and and environmentalism.
carlsson wrote:Honestly I don't know if other countries in the European Union follow the same regulations. Perhaps they don't do today but will in the future. Bah for all this recycling junk and environmental thinking. If we have survived several thousand years without paying much attention to recycling, why do we need to start now?
I think the US takes a more graduated approach. At the one end of the spectrum, recycling 100% of very little will make very little impact. While, at the other extreme, recycling even 50% of a lot will make a huge difference.
I hope you all saw my invisible ironic smiley? Of course I am for recycling and am doing it myself, just that I'd rather pay a bit more taxes to get the local recycling station and the company who buys their electronic waste to handle my broken FE3 than requiring the original seller to pay in advance for a service I won't use. I mean how likely is it that you send your broken TV back to China to let the manufacturer recycle it just because it was assembled there?
carlsson wrote:I hope you all saw my invisible ironic smiley? Of course I am for recycling and am doing it myself, just that I'd rather pay a bit more taxes to get the local recycling station and the company who buys their electronic waste to handle my broken FE3 than requiring the original seller to pay in advance for a service I won't use. I mean how likely is it that you send your broken TV back to China to let the manufacturer recycle it just because it was assembled there?
Sorry, missed the invisible ironic smiley interesting perspective on the other points, that may work better... hm...
Possibly it is a different view in each country how to do recycling. Who should pay for it: the manfacturer, the reseller, the customer (via taxes), the recycling company who actually buy trash to convert it into new materials? In countries where you have rather low income and sales taxes (VAT), most of the population may object that recycling should be paid from public taxes and rather each manufacturer should pay for themselves. The problem arises when a product is exported to a foreign country applying a different view.
carlsson wrote:Who should pay for it: the manfacturer, the reseller, the customer (via taxes), the recycling company who actually buy trash to convert it into new materials?
In the Netherlands we pay a "removal contribution" when buying a device. So the buyer pays. He who doesn't, doesn't pay (in contrary to taxes). I guess it is about 1% of the price.
interesting perspective on the other points, that may work better... hm...
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