Leading companies including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, Ericsson and Philips and Cisco Systems have joined (PDF) a United Nations initiative that aims to standardize world policy and legislative approaches to electronic recycling processes, GreenSupplyLine reports. Such processes could impact the design of ICs, packaging and equipment to better support reuse and recycling as well as stricter rules on the disposal of electronics.
The StEP initiative has been created by the UN University, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Other prominent charter partners include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California at Berkeley, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Technical University Vienna (Austria), French National Institute of Telecommunication (France), Technical University Delft (Netherlands), University of Melbourne (Australia), State Secretary of Economics and EMPA (Switzerland), Regional Environmental Centre (Hungary), the Korea Institute of Geoscience & Mineral Resources, and Umicore Precious Metal Refining (Belgium).
The list of private sector participants in StEP included: AER Worldwide, Cisco Systems Inc., Dataserv Ltd., Dell, Earth Protection Services, Ericsson, Flection, Hewlett Packard, MicroPro Ltd., Microsoft Corp., Philips Consumer Electronics, Promotionteam Wetzlar, Rifer Environmental, SIMS-MIREC, Taizhou Chiho Tiande, Umicore Precious Metal Refining.