Waste policies are a broad area. Comparing policies between different countries is an arduous and meticulous task. In the scope of our paper, we aim to analyze the general principles on which waste policy-making process is guided. We point out considerable similarities in directions of policies between developed and developing countries. However, two laws based on the same principle may diverse significantly. In order to have a better understanding of specific policies being implemented, we investigate the electronic waste management discipline.
All in all, e-waste is an ever growing and hazardous current problem which deteriorates the global environment and health of the world population. Furthermore, e-waste exporting causes significant threats to especially developing countries and therefore regulations and laws concerning e-waste trade should be seriously reconsidered. and renewed. However, future policies should also give businesses incentives to change their behavior towards a sustainable product design and product life cycle assessment.
What comes to e-waste policies, the European Union has been a pioneer in the field with its WEEE and RoHS directives. Especially the WEEE directive with its "Producer Responsibility" approach has been a revolutionary approach, assigning the producers the responsiblity of the products for the time after their useful life. This feature of the policy has supported the idea of sustainable product design. Furthermore, despite the WEEE directive is decreasing the amount of waste and increasing the rate of recycling, to diminish the environmental impacts from e-waste, also the RoHS directive is needed, to decrease even further the environmental degradation resulting from the hazardous substances that e-waste contains.
India and China are developing countries and certainly need to eliminate this growing waste stream, because it is more and more an alarming situation for the earth and for humans. Some steps are recommended to eradicate e-waste such as waste minimization, restructuring recycling, protective protocol for workers and for citizens. But recycling seems to be the best option by extending the life of old equipment's. For both countries, it is a big challenge because policies suppose subsidies and ecotaxes, production policies and practices such as integrated product policy, life cycle assessment, and extended producer responsibility, polluter pays principle… As regards distribution, it deals with advertising reform, ecolabeling, packaging, pricing and about consumption policies; it concerns norms and behavior, awareness and education. To conclude, we can think about this sentence from Gandhi "the earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not one man's greed"
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