It's a good thought to recycle hardware when they're 'consumed', but I do hope the EU is also considering 'not multinational corporation size' hardware manufacturers. Those will just get the certificate and do the bare minimum of the intent of the law anyway.
There's two ways that could prevent strangling medium- and small-sized companies as I see it; 1) either the PCB manufacturers offer fulfilling the certificate requirements for a smaller fee (they too might be out of work otherwise), or 2) the EU offers small companies to apply for exemption, those that don't reach the huge consumerism volume the big monsters of companies do.
Or make products in countries not yet in the EU
That would be the 'big CEO' solution. Problem solved, conscience what is that?
The problem is they're already making everything in low wage countries in Asia, so the law will only affect companies with low volumes, ie. have minimal effect. IQ in the EU would be nice.
Anyway, glad that Individual Computers et al solved, even if I'm an environmentalist, in this case I don't care how
Perhaps also auto-move resuscitated archived News thread into an Old News subforum?