Analyzing Regulations on Electronic Waste Management: A Comparative Study of Indonesia and the United States
Keywords:
Comparative Law, E-Waste, Extended Producer Responsibility, Hazardous Waste, IndonesiaAbstract
Indonesia generated an estimated 1.6 million tons of electronic waste in 2019, yet no Indonesian statute or regulation addresses e-waste as a distinct legal category, and most of it is handled by an informal sector that burns, dumps, or acid-leaches discarded devices. This article compares the legal frameworks and institutional structures through which Indonesia and the United States regulate e-waste, and it asks which elements of the American approach can be adapted to Indonesian conditions. Using normative juridical research with statutory, comparative, and conceptual approaches, it examines the Waste Management Law, the hazardous waste regulations and their implementing ministerial rules, the EPA's rule on cathode ray tubes (EPA-HQ-RCRA-2004-0012), and state-level extended producer responsibility (EPR). It finds that Indonesian provisions on e-waste are implicit and scattered across general waste and hazardous waste instruments, whereas the United States combines a federal hazardous waste rule with state EPR systems and EPA planning tools, albeit without full national uniformity. Drawing on EPR theory and on the comparative-law literature on legal transplants, the article proposes a dedicated e-waste regime built on a binding classification, producer take-back obligations, technical processing standards, and the legal recognition of informal collectors.
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