Why Is Appliance Recovery, Re-use and Recycling Important?
The focus of this report is on what happens to end-of-life major appliances – that is, appliances that have reached the end of their useful life and have been discarded. Growing waste streams and improved scientific knowledge have resulted in increasing concern world-wide about the environmental, economic and social impacts of the landfilling of end-of-life appliances (and indeed other electronic and electrical products). These impacts are likely to increase in the future as technological innovation continues to reduce product life spans, ownership of products increases and more and more products become obsolete. In response, governments and industry in many countries are developing ways to reduce the impact of appliance disposal through re-use and recycling.
