Chips are down for companies aiming to discourage recycling

Date: 04/04/02

By Laurence Frost

ELECTRONIC equipment makers are increasingly building products to prevent their re-use or recycling, the European Parliament will be told next week.

MEP Chris Davies is calling for tough action against manufacturers who design 'clever chips' to thwart recycling efforts.

The UK Liberal's proposals to ban the environmentally unfriendly designs will be put to the vote in Strasbourg by MEPs considering European Commission plans to boost electronic hardware recycling.

Davies will single out the manufacturers of printers and their ink cartridges, who he says go to ever greater lengths to prevent customers using top-up ink refills instead of buying new cartridges.

Printers are also increasingly designed to reject refilled cartridges or issue warning messages to deter users from installing them.

'Even though there's nothing wrong with it, the display board gives you a message suggesting your printer is about to blow up,' said Davies.

One cartridge designed and patented by Lexmark International even goes so far as to activate an electric current when the ink runs low, burning out its own electronics.

The Commission's draft 'electroscrap' directive would force companies to pay for the recycling of their hardware products, but not 'consumables' such as cartridges - a loophole Davies wants to close.

'It's quite obvious that clever chips intended to prevent re-use and recycling break the spirit of this new law,' the MEP said.

'We need to deter the manufacturers now, before they think of even more ways of using this technology to curb competition.'

Next week's second reading vote is expected to reaffirm the Parliament's position on 'electroscrap', which would require that individual companies be held responsible for the recycling of their own brands of goods.

But EU governments want the option of allowing their industries to share the overall recycling bill - which critics say would reduce companies' incentive to design products that are easier to recycle and cause less waste.

The proposed directive looks set for conciliation talks between the Parliament and member states, unless environment ministers meeting in June accept the MEPs' position.

MEP Chris Davies will call on the European Parliament in April 2002 to ban environmentally unfriendly designs of electronic equipment which contain chips that effectively stop the product being re-used or recycled.