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    Mato Grosso Requires Cell Phone Take-Back

    By Keith R | May 17, 2009

    Topics: Electronic/Electrical Equipment, Waste & Recycling | No Comments »

          
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    It’s a very brief law — two articles, a total of four lines. But it may have a significant impact on the Brazilian market for cell phones and their accessories if other states follow Mato Grosso’s (MT) lead.

    When MT passed its e-waste law last year, the list of items covered did not include cell phones and their accessories (such as chargers or Bluetooth headset) in the list of equipment explicitly covered by its provisions.  It did refer to consumer electronics and included a catchall phrase — “electro-electronics” — in that law’s scope, but for that to apply to cell phones might have required an expansive definition of “electro-electronics” in the implementing decree.

    Instead a simplier solution was proposed and adopted: amend the 2002 State Solid Waste Policy Law to add a fifth subparagraph in Article 50 on the obligations of manufacturers, importers and distibutor for special wastes created by their products, roughly translated as:

    The distributors of cellular sets, their parts and accessories, shall make available bins suitable for the collection of such wastes in those establishments specializing in their sale, and shall send all the collected material to manufacturers and/or assemblers who will give them an adequate destination.

    The rest of the amendment merely states that this obligation takes effect as soon as it was published in the state’s official gazette, which was 12 May.  I should point out, though, that traditionally laws are not fully enforced until an implementing decree is issued, and the implementing decree for the Waste Policy Law is about six years overdue.

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