In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price).
Sometimes it's even used in marketing ("bring your old TV, get new one 10% cheaper"), maybe because they need to meet some quotas so they have to actively convince people to bring their old stuff.
I'm not sure what happens with the items they collect, but hopefully it's shipped to some recycling center instead of getting dropped in a landfill, which would be the case when consumers didn't have this option.
Where I live in the UK we just put the clothes in a bag next to the recycling containers and they get taken away.
They also take away car batteries, car oil, small appliances, batteries etc
In an effort to not have to go to the dump with them, as I didn’t have a car at the time, I actually chopped up two entire sofas with an axe and a knife and recycled them over the space of three months too :)
In Norway we have variations on systems like this for tyres, electronic equipment and so on. Generally the manufacturer or importer pays into a fund that is supposed to pay for recycling of the product once it is scrapped. In addition shops that sell electronic goods have to accept scrap electronic goods (anyone's not just what they sold) for recycling. Petrol stations have public bins for recycling containers that contained toxic chemicals like screen wash, antifreeze, and oil.
Eh, no, my country is one of the best of EU in recycling and waste management. I dispose of all waste exactly as I should in a clear, structured and very practical way. (any) phones are taken back for recycling by most sellers, for example.
In Finland this is sort of institutionalized and brick & mortar -ized. For example Helsinki has an official recycling center (kierrätyskeskus) AND some more-or-less private chains (UFF, FIDA). They all operate on the principle that people drop stuff off they no longer want, and without compensation - "donations" - that are checked, priced, and placed on a shelf or the display area floor. Complex items like home electronics can be tested and then tagged as such. It's a marvelous system for keeping perfectly serviceable goods in circulation, and it not incidentally provides donors the satisfaction of their stuff finding new homes.
In Norway most supermarkets have a box for used batteries, broken light bulbs, fluorescent tubes as well as a reverse vending machine for drinks cans and bottles.
Shops that sell electrical goods (computers, audiovisual, cookers, etc.) have to be willing to accept electrical goods for recycling even if they don't sell that specific model or even brand. So a lot more people are within a reasonable distance of a place to recycle quite a few things.
Something that can sadly still been seen widely in ex-yu countries is illegal dumping of old furniture and appliances. It's common to leave smaller appliances next to garbage containers. There are recycling centers being built in cities, but a lot of people are unaware and don't know it's their duty to properly dispose of items. I believe it's the consumerist culture, people are being sold shiny products on shelves, but the whole dirty lifecycle is hidden from them. In addition, companies producing electronics and appliances should somehow participate in disposal, even just by making things easier to disassemble and recycle.
Finland has a good system for this. You can take no-longer-wanted household items to your nearest kierrätyskeskus ("recycling center"). They sort thru it, toss the unsellable, check over checkoverable things (think: stereos and sweaters and jigsaw puzzles) to verify they're OK (and affix a label), and put'em on a shelf with a price tag.
These centers are a wonderful source of super-affordable second-hand stuff. The environmental benefits are yuuuge.
We have had state-owned second-hand stores all my life here (Scandinavia). I don't see any difference to the one in the article. The city even picks up items at you home or you could deliver them at recycling and garbage disposal areas. Broken things are often fixed and then sold too.
Something like this is already in use in Finland. AFAIK it's at least for electronics, cars, car tires, and plastics. The manufacturers/importers are responsible for handling their recycling costs and so they put the cost into the product. Products are more expensive but they are then free to recycle.
One of the local super markets sends containers full of new TVs, washing machines, and more, to the local scrap yard. They didn't sell them within the period that they expected, and instead of discounting them (which would drive away consumers from more expensive products), they 'recycle' them.
Good riddance? People will keep finding & buying things they need.
If nobody’s buying anything from these businesses without invasive advertising & tracking then maybe whatever goods they were selling aren’t actually necessary?
Of course there is nuance and edge cases to this, but in general I wouldn’t be surprised if society and the planet was better off once we stop producing useless garbage.
the article does a poor job of selling the problem here, but the outrage is that companies encourage overconsumption in rich western countries by telling us things are recycled, and that it's okay to buy more stuff we don't need because it's recyclable. it's just greenwashing.
most of the shoes people put in donation bins aren't going to last long for their second owners, and people in indonesia don't have the same compunctions about throwing things in the trash as people in richer countries do. so all this is doing is shipping waste overseas so an indonesian can throw it in the garbage and it goes in an indonesian landfill instead of a singaporean landfill. they're laundering the waste so rich people can pretend they aren't throwing things in the trash.
This isn't unthinkable - in Switzerland, whenever you buy a an electric device (not just electronics!), a part of your purchase cost will be the pre-purchase of the associated recycling cost.
This enables the workflow where anyone can simply walk up to a retailer and hand them their old white goods free of charge - and they legally have to collect it, even if they didn't originally sell that item.
By absorbing it they just pass it along to the consumer.
Unfortunately this will make a lot of people more sloppy shoppers and the next step will be to limit the percentage of purchased goods that can be returned which will play right into the hands of the junk manufacturers.
Throwaway society stuff is generally dumped on Eastern European outlets (prime example are used cars, white goods, even clothes etc.).
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