![]() ![]() The EAR itself admits that the program is "capable of expansion." According to recent figures, only 27 percent of new devices sold end up at the collection sites. The program is costly and complex, and the results are hardly satisfactory. The amount of material a manufacturer sells in a given category determines when and how often its waste is picked up. The companies hire private-sector environmental service providers to pick up and dispose of the waste, a process that occurred more than 90,000 times last year. Approximately 8,000 businesses are currently registered. All manufacturers that sell electrical and electronic equipment in Germany are required to register with the EAR. Once a container is full, a message is sent to the EAR foundation in the northern Bavarian city of Fürth, which organizes the collection of used appliances and their further processing. Workers at the facilities sort the waste into five groups. Since then, consumers have been able to drop off electronic equipment at Germany's roughly 1,500 community collection sites, in addition to the usual bulk waste and hazardous materials. When it was put in place, the government compelled manufacturers to develop and fund a take-back system. The current system, which has existed in Germany for the last six years, is clearly in need of improvement. ![]() "What we need is a recycling strategy," he says. To satisfy this demand from mines alone would be asking too much of nature, warns Armin Reller, a chemistry professor and resource specialist in the southern German city of Augsburg. At the same time, the total demand for valuable metals is growing immensely. New generations of smartphones and laptops are introduced to the marketplace - and old models scrapped - within shorter and shorter cycles. The study concludes that the industrialized countries should radically change their wasteful use of resources, particularly as the volume of scrap from electronic equipment is growing rapidly from year to year. The unused potential of recycling such materials is "enormous," say the authors. One conclusion, for example, is that the recycling rates for 32 of 37 special metals are close to zero.
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