If what you mean is that the consumer is charged a surcharge, like the old bottle deposits, that is refunded on return of the item (computer, monitor, etc.) then I am OK with that. Unfortunately, systems for public disposal are poor in middle Tennessee-USA. The county I live in will take computers for disposal, at no charge (other than taxes, of course). However, they only do it ONE Saturday a year for four or five hours. Unfortunately, I was on vacation this year. Now, Dell, which has assembly and distribution facilities here offers such a service in Nashville once or twice a year and their events last a few hours only as well. And there is no penalty for just dumping them in the trash. It seams like the situation in South Carolina-USA is similar or worse. So, IMHO, I think two things need to be done, first the consumer needs to pay a disposal fee and deposit up front like you said. Plus, either the local governments, the computer companies and/or the waste disposal (trash) companies need to make it easy to do the right thing. In other words, it needs to be easier and/or more beneficial for a person or company that owns a computer to dispose of it properly than improperly. Until then, people and companies will continue to dump computers in the trash or by the road and we all ultimately pay the price for it in clean up costs. But, the point of my initial message was not that a fee should be charged or not, but that it should not be charged to the manufacturer as IMHO it is not fair to hold someone or some entity responsible for events it has no control of. Now, someone wants to require the computer manufacturers, resellers, and retailers to offer a service to dispose of used computer equipment, that is another story and I while I am not for requiring that, I would not oppose that if it happened.
Andrew C. Eisenberg Nashville, TN, USA (a.k.a. Music City USA) (Yes Virginia, there are rock and roll stations in Nashville! :laugh:)
