NEPSI nears a consensus.After years of meetings, stakeholders Stakeholders All parties that have an interest, financial or otherwise, in a firm-stockholders, creditors, bondholders, employees, customers, management, the community, and the government. from the electronics manufacturing This article presents a typical manufacturing process of an electronic assembly. Component manufacturing Components such as resistors, capacitors and integrated circuits are generally made by specialized contractors. and retailing segment, the solid waste/recycling industry and the environmental sector through the National Electronic Product Stewardship Product stewardship is a concept whereby environmental protection centers around the product itself, and everyone involved in the lifespan of the product is called upon to take up responsibility to reduce its environmental impact. Initiative (NEPSI NEPSI National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative NEPSI National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative NEPSI Northeast Power Systems, Inc. NEPSI National Supervision and Inspection Center for Explosion Protection and Safety of Instrumentation ) have agreed on many key aspects to handling obsolete electronics. Cat Wilt, NEPSI program director and a University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (UT), sometimes called the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UT Knoxville or UTK), is the flagship institution of the statewide land-grant University of Tennessee public university system in the American state of Tennessee. senior research associate, told attendees of the E-Scrap 2004 Conference in Minneapolis in mid-October that NEPSI soon may be willing to make recommendations for U.S. legislators to bring before Congress. But the source of disagreement, the financing mechanism, is critical. "There is recognition that a NEPSI agreement [isn't] possible until this is resolved." NEPSI participants are considering a funding arrangement with a visible fee at the point of sale that provides flexibility in how the funds collected are managed. Some manufacturers could use collected fees to run their own take-back programs, while others could contribute to a pooled program. Ultimately, Wilt said NEPSI "gathered a tremendous amount of data. I think there will be a national solution [and] I think NEPSI laid the groundwork for it." |
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