The United Nations is to publish global guidelines governing the environmentally responsible recycling and disposal of e-waste. They come as part of a new initiative announced yesterday backed by HP, Dell, Cisco, Ericsson and Microsoft.

Entitled Solving the E-waste Problem (StEP), the new initiative will be run by the UN University and will involve three UN agencies, a range of NGOs and 16 high-tech and recycling companies. Its aims include globally harmonising e-waste recycling best practices and legislation, encouraging vendors to extend the life of electronic products and provide more upgradable components, and promoting recycling and re-use to end users.

The UN said that while there are now e-waste laws in many countries, such as the European Union's WEEE directive, there is a need to harmonise these policies globally to better tackle the practice of old IT kit being shipped to developing countries with less rigorous e-waste laws. It added that with many users upgrading to flat screen monitors and TVs, e-waste was now the world's fastest growing waste stream; enough waste is being produced each year to fill a line of dump trucks stretching half way round the Earth.

"Companies involved in StEP will benefit through globally standardised, safe and environmentally-proven processes for disposal, reduction or reuse and recycling of e-scrap," said UN Under Secretary-General Hans van Ginkel. "Member manufacturers will work to design products more easily upgradeable because we all agree buying an entirely new product is wasteful when what’s really wanted is upgraded components."

Klaus Hieronymi, environment manager at HP in Europe, said that the initiative would focus on five areas: promoting the importance of e-waste legislation to national governments; developing best practice standards for recycling; making it easier for products to be re-used; designing products more suited for recycling; and developing cleaner recycling technologies for small-scale recyclers in the developing world.

The UN said it is also planning an international accreditation scheme for vendors that "will signal to consumers that e-scrap processes associated with a company’s products conform to agreed international standards and guidelines".

Jean Cox-Kearns, recycling manager at Dell, said that such guidelines would make it easier for firms to pick the best disposal partners. "There are some e-waste regulations now but there aren’t clear standards on what the best recycling process is and how you best support re-use," she said. "That is what StEP will deliver and because it brings together academics, scientists, manufacturers and recyclers there is a real opportunity to develop strong standards."

Any new standards could even help cut the cost of IT disposal, according to Hieronymi. "We want to ensure e-waste is treated properly wherever it is treated in the world and currently that requires a lot of auditing work," he said. " Global standards that resolve the debates about what processes are best and are policed by an independent standards organisation would make the whole process simpler."

Ruediger Kuehr of the UN University, who will head a secretariat of the StEP project in Germany, said that it also made commercial sense to promote best practices and encourage recovery of the many precious metals used in electronic devices, such as gold, palladium, silver and indium. "This partnership is committed to salvaging these increasingly precious resources and preventing them from fouling the environment," he said.