The Institutional Development of WEEE and Its Impact on Electronic Industry and the Waste Recycling Policy in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Wang.Chin-Lan, 王金蘭
• Other Authors: Chang.Ssu-Li
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/54776947288452932560

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 自然資源與環境管理研究所在職專班 === 95 === Abstract Currently, most countries around the world have been aggressively working on waste minimization and recycling management policy. The waste management policy has been changed from end-of-pipe treatment to waste deduction. In recent years, design for environment and green management policy have been employed to manufacturing processes. This trend indicates that most countries already paid a lot of attention to recycling and resources management policy. Experts, who have been researching efficiency of recycling management, found that the best control point is at product manufacturers and importers. As such, the idea of Extended Producer Responsibility （EPR） was brought into the public. European countries were the very first area to carry out such idea and develop related environment management policy afterward. WEEE and RoHS Directive are the best examples for the environment management policy implementation. European countries are not only for regulating product recycling level and hazardous substance but also laying down the EuP Directive, trying to adopt green design mechanism during product design stage. When those environmental related directives were published in Europe, Japan, Korea and US began to work out similar directives and have been published and implemented recently. Therefore, the challenge that manufacturer is facing is a global environment management policy. In 1997, Taiwan EPA introduced Four-in-One Recycling System and then, the Recycling Management Fund was established to build up and manage Taiwan recycling system in the following year. The system makes sure that all recycling points are compensated fairly, all participants are rewarded for taking part in the program, and all manufacturers’ responsibilities are raised to the public. However, manufacturers, who are mandated to pay the treatment and collection fee according to the law, do not really introduce green design into their products. However, the green management policy has become worldwide activities. In order for Taiwan manufacturers to compete with global industry, prevent lower grade products dumping to Taiwan, and stay on the right track with global development, Taiwan government must take aggressive actions on green management policy on product design, production, consumption and disposal stage. Purposes of this research are to realize the impact of Taiwan IT industry to those recent environment directives, to understand the action items taken by Taiwan IT industry, and to compare those directives with Taiwan existing regulations. Different from European directive, Taiwan green management system is a government owed and operated system, instead of manufacturer alliance. As such, data analysis approach and case study method were adopted during this research. In order to compare the differences between the recycling management system of Taiwan and foreign countries, Holland and Germany, as leading countries in Europe, were selected as researching target as both countries have been operating their recycling system for long time and each country has different management system. The conclusions of this research show that the management systems for both countries are manufacturer alliance with much difference from Taiwan’s system. This research can also be an important reference to Taiwan future Waste Resource Management System. According to the interview with Taiwan IT manufacturers, it was realized that manufacturers do not have problems to go for the European green management system. The main reason might be the manufacturer alliance will take over major responsibility and work loading away from manufacturers. Taiwan EPA, referring to European current systems, is developing “Waste Resource Management Act （Draft）”. According to this Act, the management system will possibly be manufacturer alliance oriented as it provides lower management cost and flexibility of system operation. This research also analyzes the interview results with Taiwan manufacturers and turns out several important conclusions and recommendations, which can be provided to the Taiwan EPA for future legislation reference.