In a surprise move, the Provincial Governments for three Canadian provinces will be charging consumers of Apple products an e-Waste fee effective November 8, 2009. This puts them on par with other provinces who are already charging a similar fee.
The new e-Waste fee is a small fee automatically attached to an electronic product such as an iMac (computer), printer, display, or MacBook (laptop). However, this fee does not apply only to Apple but in the interest of our blog, we are going to focus on Apple since they were not charging these fees before.
The e-Waste fee is attached to specific electronics from all retailers and that now includes Apple. It is a non-refundable, Government enabled fee and may be viewed more as an additional tax on the electronics that you purchase. The reason for the charge is to help recycle old electronics with nasty chemicals and manufacturing materials inside.
What’s interesting in Apple’s case is that Apple has made leaps in reducing their carbon footprint by reducing chemicals in their products and making them highly recyclable, yet the fee will still be charged. Of course, the Provincial Government cannot discriminate between firms, so everyone pays equally.
At this time, the three affected provinces are British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.
British Columbia
Alberta
Ontario
More information for each province at the province specific links below:
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This fee has existed for awhile. BC's was introduced on August 1, 2007, then amended on August 1, 2009.
Yup, it's another tax grab all right. But the real outrage is that these electronics will *still* end up in dumps in third world countries for “recycling”.
WRONG the HP mini I got few weeks ago futureshop only charge $1.20 for the environmental fee, which is the e-Waste Fee you are talking about
When did it exist for Apple products before?
The blog post talks about e-Waste fees for Apple products. HP is not Apple the last time I checked. 🙂
Well, this fee is apparently to fund the recycling program. Who knows where the “non recyclable” computers/parts end up, eh?
It applies to all stated electronics, regardless of the manufacture. A link to this recycling fee page has been on the online canadian Apple Store for quite awhile.
And the Google cache of that page from November 4, if you think it wasn't there before today.
However, you still never paid the fees when buying an Apple product.
A fee like this has been around for a few years now for electronics, but to have this with Apple products… Its just another money maker to me.
Ya, I don't think for Apple products. It was for regular electronic devices until now.
I think it's BS unless the government has somewhere we can drop this junk off in a few years time. Unless I'm missing something, where do we dump our old computers? My municipality charges me for dumping it off at the local dump. So I'm being charged twice now? We canadians need to stand up for once. This is BS unless they offer free dumping for these products in the future
I dump mine at the Salvation Army. They happily take them for free
Exactly. Anybody can just take the money and say they're going to recycle the waste for us. Here's jsut one example:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60min…
I think it's BS unless the government has somewhere we can drop this junk off in a few years time. Unless I'm missing something, where do we dump our old computers? My municipality charges me for dumping it off at the local dump. So I'm being charged twice now? We canadians need to stand up for once. This is BS unless they offer free dumping for these products in the future
I dump mine at the Salvation Army. They happily take them for free
Exactly. Anybody can just take the money and say they're going to recycle the waste for us. Here's jsut one example:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60min…
Putting up a fee to retailed computers and equipments is a good idea. In this way, recycling the future e-waste is secured and guaranteed making recycling in the future more manageable.