Product stewardship means more than just offering recycling options for products:It means designing easily serviceable and refurbishable consumer electronics, Extending the life of a product and greatly reducing its emvironmental impact. The end-of-life (EOL) management of electronic products has traditionally been an externality for those who design and sell the products. Making products easier to assemble is in the interest of manufacturers, and that can make them easier to disassemble. However, decisions designed solely to enhance the EOL management have not been a high priority for many manufacturers. An environmental standard to which manufacturers pay serious attention could provide an effective incentive to improve design for EOL, and that is the intent, and strength, of EPEAT.
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