Product Disposal repsonsiblity law coming into effect in Europe in 2005

[Guest guest]

You can read all about it here

(http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28653.html). Basically

businesses will have to share the disposal/recycling costs for all

products sold in Europe before Sep 2005. After Sep 2005 each company

will be responsible for the disposal costs related their own

products. Isn't that fantastic I can just see the bulky packaging

disapearing. At the same time I think companies will strive to use

more costly biodegradable materials so that the total cost (market +

recycling) will be lower. How about that?

 

Since the article is on a techie site they start by talking more

about how these laws will effect the US Printer industry, which is

also a good thing. Basically many of today's printers don't allow

competitor refills either via a generic cartridge or by refilling the

same manufacturers cartridge with generic ink. Basically the

cartridges have encoded chips that unlock the printer and allow it to

print. These same chips auto-disable the cartridge permanently when

they run out of ink preventing them to be refilled. The European

Union has declared both practices illegal (not allowing generic

cartridges and preventing refills). Hopefully this means that these

same printers will be available in the US as well. Although as it

was stated this will have a signicant increase on the price of

printers. Currently the printer ink strategy is very simple:

practically give away the printers and then charge up the ying yang

for refills. How can they charge so much for refills? Simple they

have made it both illegal and technologically difficult (encoded

smart chips) to create a generic refill solution.

 

In spite of all the current foreign and domestic printer company

trickery you can refill most ink cartridges if you don't ever let

your cartridges run completely out, because some only disable once

their empty.

 

 

Adios Amigos,

Christian