What Is An Environmental Fee And Why Do We Need To Pay For It?

9th May '17

Gone are the days when costs only comprised of fixed costs and variable costs. Now, as the awareness of pollution and society care has grown, government has imposed certain external costs also called ‘Social Costs’ on certain business. These costs are known as Social costs because they are imposed as a fine on businesses that excrete hazardous and poisonous material, smoke, and gaseous particles dangerous to the environment. One of these costs is the ‘Environmental Fee’. Environmental Fee or commonly called Environmental Handling Fee (EHF) is the cost of recycling a product and disposing it safely without harming the nearby living organisms having rights equal to humans on this planet.

Why Is It Imposed?

As a part of society, it is our responsibility to ensure that every item that we buy does not bring hazardous injury and is recycled properly after its disposal. When we throw away an old television, how many of us think back of the consequences of our careless behavior? What if this television turns to be injurious or fatal to any living thing? Any child or animal can misuse it or even the plants or nearby water can get polluted from the battery that emits harmful substances to the environment. In order to avoid that, an Environmental Handling Fee is charged to the consumers, either separately or along the total cost of the product, in order to ensure that’s it is disposed of properly. The fee collection manages safety, transition, and disposal of such electronic items so that they do not end up harming the environment. There can be other benefits too. For example, the idea behind this campaign in Canada was to avoid illegal export of used and disposed electronics to third world countries where they can still be sold in high prices and the patents image will suffer losses over its cheap sale.


How Is It Calculated?

Dismissing the thought that this fee is a tax or a deposit, the organizations responsible behind it clearly declare that’s it’s not refunded as it’s not a tax. It is calculated by accumulating all the costs necessary to dispose of an item. This includes the transport fee, the collection charges, the duties necessary, if they have to be exported elsewhere, and the recycling program’s fee. Percentage of this total is then distributed amongst the electronics based on the profit every item contributes to the whole business. If a stereo system does not sell that well, then its recycling fee might be low in comparison to a video game or a microwave oven. It is sometimes mentioned on the product or sometimes not, but it contributes to the price of a product. So, we can now judge and implore the reason as to why a MacBook is more expensive than a normal computer: because the parts of a MacBook will require more effort and costs to be properly recycled.

Why Is It Important?

Environmental Fee not only manages the proper process of disposal but also ensures the safety of workers processing it. It is a way of saving and conserving already scarce raw materials that can be brought to a greater use and more productive items can be built from them. But usually, these raw materials are disrupted and harmed when the electronics are not properly packed and recycled. So, this fee ensures that the program runs smoothly and there are no hindrances to every step of its completion.

So, let us save this world and play our part in protecting it!