User:Halfrated/sandbox

Oceania
As written in the article found on MPDI Open Access Journals, "This region has one of the highest per capita generations of e-waste, as well as one of the lowest recycling rates. Despite being the lowest e-waste generating region globally... " This sentence brings forward the idea of the lack of effort Oceania had when it came to trying to properly expose e-waste. Oceania consisting of Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia generates the second most e-waste, 16.1 kg, while having the third lowest recycling rate of 8.8%. Out of Oceania, only Australia has a policy in policy to manage e-waste, that being the Policy Stewardship Act published in 2011 that aimed to manage the impact of products, mainly those in reference to the disposal of products and their waste. Under the Act the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS) was created, which forced manufactures and importers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) importing 5000 or more products or 15000 or more peripherals be liable and required to pay the NTCRS for retrieving and recycling materials from electronic products.

New Zeland does not have any law that directly mananges their e-waste, instead they have voluntary product stewardship schemes such as supplier trade back and trade-in schemes and voluntary recycling drop-off points. Though this has helped it costs the provider money with labor taking up 90% of the cost of recycling. In addition, e-waste is currently not considered a priority product, which would ecourage the enforcement of product stewardship. In Pacific Island Regions (PIR) e-waste management is a hard task since they lack the adequate amount of land to properly dispose of it even though they produce one of the lowest amounts of e-waste in the world due to their income and population. Due to this there are large stockpiles of waste unable to be recycled safely.

At the moment The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), an organization in charge of managing the natural resources and environment of the Pacific region, is in charge of region coordination and managing the e-waste of the Oceania region. SPREP uses Cleaner Pacific 2025 as a framework to guide the various governments in the region. They also work with PacWaste (Pacific Hazardous Waste) to identify and resolve the different issues with waste management of the islands, which largely stem from the lack fo government enforcement and knowledge on the matter. They have currently proposed a manditory product stewardship policy be put in place along with an advance recycling fee which would incentivise local and industrial recycling. They are also in the mindset that the islands should collaborate and share resources and experience to assist in the endevour.