"Everywhere else where we operate, to varying degrees, there is a legislative framework, which by and large ... [creates] a significant degree of producer responsibility," said Jeremy Sutcliff, Sim's executive director (pictured) in an interview after his speech. "That comes at a cost, and the cost may or may not come back to the consumer."
By everywhere else, Sutcliffe was referring to the EU, many states of the US, Japan and Korea, where recycling of e-waste is in "excess of 80 per cent".
"There is a significant business risk in this plant, in so far as if Australia doesn't legislate, that will not generate the flows of materials to make it a low cost operation," he said.
"I'm in part putting financial pressure on the government. They have written all these reports, and nothing happened. We have put the plant in, now [the government] has got no excuse, something has got to happen. "
Surely it's about time for action on policy for managing e-waste effectively. Perhaps a better way to splash around the cash, than stimulus handouts, would be to support research and development in a new industry - re-use, recycling and extraction of precious materials from e-waste.