NATIONAL ELECTRONICS PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP INITIATIVE

The NEPSI group's main goal for the dialogue, agreed to at its June 22 meeting in San Francisco, is "the development of a system, which includes a viable financing mechanism, to maximize the collection, reuse, and recycling of used electronics, while considering appropriate incentives to design products that facilitate source reduction, reuse and recycling; reduce toxicity; and increase recycled content."

The Stakeholder dialogue will give participants the opportunity to begin discussing potential solutions to the issues surrounding the life cycle of electronic products. These solutions will require cooperation among stakeholders to improve the infrastructure for collection, reuse and recycling, to develop markets for remanufactured products and recycled materials, to remove regulatory barriers for collection and reuse and recycling, and to ensure that product designs facilitate reuse and recycling in the future.

Participants in this joint initiative are promoting the idea of product stewardship as a method to address waste electronics. Product stewardship means that all parties who have a role in producing, selling or using a product also have a role in managing it at the end of its useful life.