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|  Product Stewardship
Many companies that produce products such as computers, electronics, rechargeable batteries, carpets, ceiling tiles, and tires have implemented product stewardship programs. For a comprehensive summary, check out the links below:
According to the customary relationship between manufacturers and consumers, unless a product proves to be defective, the consumer assumes responsibility for that product from its purchase until the end of its useful life. Once products are discarded, it falls to waste handlers — either local municipalities or private carters — to take responsibility for those discards which are typically classified as municipal solid waste. This current system does not provide any incentive for manufacturers to design products for ease of reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling. The goal of product stewardship is to make producers responsible for the full life cycle of their products. Product stewardship policies provide manufacturers with an economic incentive to design products that can easily be remanufactured or recycled at the end of their useful life and/or contain less-toxic components. Costs to incorporate such design parameters and establish end-of-life collection programs are internalized in the product’s sale price. Product stewardship policies, first instituted by Germany in 1991 for packaging, now apply to producers of consumer products and to a significant portion of the packaging industry in most of the world’s industrial nations. Although there is no national policy regulating product stewardship in the United States, legislation has been enacted at the state level:
The theory behind product stewardship is that all those involved in producing, selling, and using products should be responsible for the full environmental impact of the product. This includes manufacturers, retailers, consumers, and government. Manufacturers have the best ability to reduce the entire life-cycle impact of a product and its packaging. Their decisions affect energy and material consumption, air and water emissions, toxic constituents, worker safety, and waste disposal prospects resulting from product design and end-of-life management. Retailers play their part by choosing product providers who offer greater environmental performance, educate consumers on how to choose environmentally preferable products, and enable consumers to return products for recycling. Consumers close the loop by ultimately making the choice between competing products. The consumers’ role in the product-stewardship loop is to make responsible buying choices, use products safely and efficiently, and dispose of products safely. Governments at the state and local level manage solid waste programs in the United States. The financial and regulatory burdens of this task make governments vital to developing and promoting product stewardship initiatives. Governments at all levels can strongly encourage product stewardship through their procurement activities. As the country’s largest single consumer, the federal government shares responsibility for increasing product stewardship. Federal agencies can use their purchasing power as market leverage to create incentives to design products that result in less waste, are more readily reused and recycled, contain less-toxic materials, and are made with recycled content. Product stewardship strategies Strategies for implementing product stewardship include: Take-back programs. At the end of the product’s useful life, the manufacturer will take back the specified product, strip it for parts, remanufacture or recycle the remaining materials into new products, and/or properly dispose of any residual materials. These programs have been enacted for a variety of product types. For information on specific companies and their take-back programs, visit take it back nyc!. Leasing, or “selling a service rather than a product.” Leasing leaves actual ownership of the product with the manufacturer, while customers pay for the use and maintenance of a product. At the end of the product's useful life, the manufacturer is responsible for disposal. Visit leasing in tips for your business for more information. Product design. Products can be designed for easy disassembly, and parts can be designed for durability or recyclability. Go to resources to learn about the accomplishments of Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, and other companies that incorporate product stewardship into their product design. Environmentally preferable procurement (EPP) can leverage manufacturers’ decisions. Government bodies and businesses that practice EPP can stimulate manufacturers to use recycled-content materials, design for recycling, minimize waste, or create less-toxic products. Visit EPP in tips for your business to learn more. ALSO SEE take it back nyc! for a list of take-back programs for various product categories. Various industry sectors have adopted voluntary, product stewardship initiatives: ELECTRONICS Technology progression in the electronic industry has shortened the useful life of personal computers, TVs, cell phones, and hand-held devices. In turn, consumers are replacing their old equipment more frequently. Proper disposal of growing volumes of retired electronic equipment and their toxic components is a looming problem for many municipalities across the country. The National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative has worked to bring governments, manufacturers, retailers, recyclers, and environmental groups together to develop more responsible and sustainable solutions to managing electronics at the end of their useful life. Participants include such manufacturers as Panasonic, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Canon, Epson, Microsoft, and Compaq. Specific items being addressed are TVs, computer monitors, CPUs, and computer peripherals, such as printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, and cables. For more information on the initiative, visit electronics in the resources section. PACKAGING Roughly 30 cents of every dollar consumers spend on packaged goods goes towards paying for the packaging. What’s more, packaging accounts for up to 60 percent of most municipal waste streams. As the amount of money spent on packaging products increases, so does its impact on your bottom line. Work with vendors to reduce the amount of packaging coming into your workplace, because you are paying for it twice: once as part of the purchased product and again, when your garbage bill arrives. Go to the packaging section of resources to learn how companies like Hewlett-Packard, Stonyfield Farms, and IBM have developed more environmentally effective shipping and storage methods that use less packaging, contain more recycled content, protect product quality, result in less waste, and are easier to recycle. ALSO SEE product packaging and distribution packaging in tips for your business for money-saving waste prevention tips. PHONE DIRECTORIES Yellow pages information is now widely available on the internet. For those who no longer need, or want to receive a hard copy phone directory, two leading industry associations, the Yellow Pages Association and the Association of Directory Publishers, have developed a system whereby customers can opt out of receiving their yellow page directories. For more information on the initiative, visit junk mail and other unwanted materials in the wasteless at home section section. CARPET RECLAMATION The carpet industry is working together with government entities to develop products and services devoted to the recycling and reuse of used and unwanted carpet. Carpet manufacturers are developing better-performing and longer-lasting products, as well as providing ongoing maintenance services to extend the life of their products. When a carpet finally wears out, some companies are offering reclamation services that put the carpet (regardless of its manufacturer) back to work, instead of in a landfill. For more information, see carpet reclamation in the take-back programs section. Mandatory take-back programs
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