Recycling fee brought forward: Not everyone goes along with it

The prepaid recycling fee (vRG) is added to the sales price of electrical appliances by most retailers and importers in order to finance the recycling of discarded appliances and light bulbs. However, this is not compulsory - and not everyone goes along with it.

The SENS E-Recycling Foundation criticizes this and launches the campaign "Close the circle". In this way, it aims to raise awareness among Swiss consumers and encourage them to buy electrical and electronic household appliances, luminaires and lamps from SENS and SLRS partners and to return them to one of these partners or to a SENS collection point at the end of their useful life.

This is because even old equipment for which no recycling fee is charged ends up in the e-recycling system and is a burden on it, but does not pay for the financing.

Voluntary industry solution

Over 600 manufacturers, dealers and importers in Switzerland claim the vRG when they sell an appliance and feed it into the e-recycling loop. In this way, they finance an extremely dense and convenient take-back system for end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment, lamps and luminaires for consumers. This system is organized and managed by the two foundations SENS and SLRS.

Since the take-back systems are voluntary industry solutions, companies are free to participate. A number of importers who import electrical and electronic equipment, lamps and luminaires into Switzerland do not levy the vRG. Through channels such as municipal collection points and the trade, their discarded equipment nevertheless often ends up in the SENS take-back system - i.e. is disposed of at the expense of the paying system participants.

SENS has been trying for some time to get the "non-system participants" to connect. Some of those approached have so far explicitly refused to make their contribution to the sustainable solution for their old equipment. SENS assumes that their eRecycling circuit will suffer a loss of around 1 million francs as a result. The purchase of devices abroad, where no vRG is levied either, results in further losses of an estimated 2 to 3 million Swiss francs (study "Shopping Tourism and Online Retailing."). Therefore SENS publishes a regularly updated list of these conscious deniers.

Comprehensive recycling system

With the vRG, an efficient, nationwide waste disposal system is maintained in Switzerland.

Raw materials from end-of-life equipment can be recovered (between 1990 and 2015, for example, 17,000 tons of aluminum, 530,000 tons of iron and steel, 28,000 tons of copper, and 103 kilos of gold were collected in the SENS eRecycling circuit).

Most e-waste is recycled in Switzerland and not exported to countries whose quality and environmental guidelines for scrapping do not correspond to those of Switzerland.