i posted the following about Japan, it is still relevant to this discussion

living here in Osaka has been fun for the last ten years.
EXCEPT for when the government wrote the law that said that the consumer must pay the cost of recycling air conditioners, washers, dryers, and now computers.

The reason why it has not been fun is because in the beautiful park nearby - and in the corners of some of the rice fields! - there are piles of dishwashing machines, refrigerators and old "wapro"s (japanese word processors). The city governement becomes responsible after several months of no one claiming them but then the tax payers money gets used for the disposal.

You see, the problematic point is not so much that the little sticker on new machines is there to show that you have prepaid (hence adding to the price of new machines) BUT that all the old machines are levyed for a fee to recycle them.

Many people don't want to spend 7000 yen to get rid of their old air conditioner so they junk it.

Same thing may happen to computers too.