By Martin Vedris
SYDNEY: Panasonic Australia’s managing director, Steve Rust, gives the Federal Government’s TV energy star ratings scheme a gold star but says there is more improvement needed on recycling.
“On the energy star ratings I think the government is doing a great job,” said Rust.
“On the recycling side, successive governments have been slow to look at this problem and the new Federal Government of course has only had a limited time to get involved and recently the Minister did announce a study by his department into recycling, generally speaking, and is that enough? From my perspective I’m happy to see something happening but I’d like to see it happening faster.”
Panasonic and Sharp have both jumped onto the energy star ratings scheme with Sharp releasing its 3-star rated 37-inch LC37D85X LCD TV in November.
Panasonic has also launched a 3-star TV with its 26-inch TX-26LXD8A VIERA LCD TV currently on the market.
“We are going to be introducing energy rating labels on all our televisions,” said Rust. “We will do it model by model as we introduced them from here on.”
While energy efficiency is important, Rust calls on the government work more closely with the industry to implement a national recycling scheme.
“There’s a big issue around waste,” Rust said. “What happens to these TVs? Are they just going into landfill? It is not good for the environment.
“We’re keen to see a recycling scheme, but it can only really be done at a national level across the industry, it is too big a problem for an individual manufacturer in their own right to take up.
“We’ve finally had some reaction from the Federal government and recently they announced that they will conduct a major study on recycling of products and we’re certainly keen to see that happen.
“We think a scheme can be implemented fairly quickly, within two years, but it requires a task force to be set up to liaise with industry to do that and to begin working on it immediately, and that’s not happening and that’s what I’d like to see.”