UK will pay for green PCs
Greenpeace report reveals that UK end-users are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly PCs
UK end-users are willing to spend an extra £64 for a more environmentally friendly PC, but many still want vendors to foot the bill for dealing with hazardous waste, a cost that could filter through to the channel, according to a recent Greenpeace report.
The report coincides with the enforcement of the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, which came into force on Saturday.
RoHS will affect any firm that manufactures, resells, distributes and recycles electrical and electronic equipment containing more than permitted levels of certain substances, such as mercury, lead and cadmium (CRN, 6 March).
Greenpeace questioned 9,042 end-users worldwide for its survey, including 1,013 from the UK. A significant 48 per cent of respondents believed that the responsibility for dealing with hazardous electrical waste lies with the manufacturers.
Zeina al-Hajj, a Greenpeace representative, said in a statement: “Consumers not only want greener PCs; they are willing to pay extra for them. However, they want the computer industry to live up to its responsibilities and ensure that when products reach the end of their life, they do not become hazardous waste that contaminates the environment.”
Iain McGlade, new business generator at VAR European Electronique, said that the additional amount end-users were willing to pay for greener equipment is not relative to the actual costs.
“All PC vendors may build a recycling cost into their PCs,” he said. “I can’t see such a price rise having much of an impact on the channel.”
However, Louise Marchall, corporate risk manager at vendor Brother, told CRN that the directive will have an impact upon channel pockets.
“There will be more pressure on end-users to take equipment back to distributors or resellers to be recycled if they pay a recycling cost when they originally buy the goods,” she said.
Last week, as revealed by CRN Online, Greenpeace publicly praised Dell after it pledged to remove key toxic chemicals from its PCs, laptops and other products to make them more environmentally friendly and to tackle toxic e-waste.