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Similar legislation has been enacted in Asia, with E-waste legislation in the United States limited to the state-level due to stalled efforts in the United States Congress regarding multiple E-waste legislation bills. In the meantime, several states have
passed their own laws regarding electronic waste management. California was the first state to enact such legislation, followed by Maryland, Maine, Washington and Minnesota. More recently, legislatures in Oregon and Texas passed their own laws.

Due to the difficulty and cost of recycling used electronics as well as lack-lustre enforcement of legislation regarding e-waste exports, large amounts of used electronics have been sent to countries such as China, India, and Kenya, where lower environmental standards and working conditions make processing e-waste more profitable.

In Switzerland, the first electronic waste recycling system was implemented in 1991 beginning with collection of old refrigerators. Over the years, all other electric and electronic devices were gradually added to the system. Legislation followed in 1998, and since January 2005, it has been possible to return all electronic waste to the sales points and other collection points free of charge. There are two established PROs (Producer Responsibility Organizations): SWICO mainly handling electronic waste, and SENS mainly responsible for electrical appliances. The total amount of recycled electronic waste exceeds 10 kg per capita per year.

The European Union has implemented a similar system under the Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment Directive, which has now been transposed in national laws in all member countries of the European Union. The WEEE directive was designed to make equipment manufacturers financially or physically responsible for their equipment at their end-of-life under a policy known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR was seen as a useful policy as it internalized the end-of-life costs and provided a competitive incentive for companies to design equipment with less costs and liabilities when it reached its end-of-life.

However, the application of the WEEE directive has been criticized for implementing the EPR concept in a collective manner and thereby losing the competitive incentive of individual manufacturers to be rewarded for their green design. The electronics manufacturers became financially responsible for compliance to the WEEE directive since August 2005 vide which every country has to recycle at least 4 kg of E-waste per capita per year by the end of 2006 - and with one or two years' lag for the new EU members.

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Dr. Gursharan Singh Kainth started his career as Lecturer at Post Graduate Dept. of Economics, Government College, Gurdaspur, and later at Khalsa College; Amritsar, specializes in Quantitative & Development Economics. Has the distinction of serving Punjab Agricultural Univ, Ludhiana, for more than 2 decades and remained Director-Principal of Saint Soldier Management & Technical Institute, Jalandhar. Currently, heading GAD Institute of Development Studies, Amritsar, a self-financed research institute. Has been honoured with various awards, including Guru Draunacharya Samman, Vijay Rattan Award, etc.
Article posted on February 22, 2009.