alt Hacker NewsA washing machine has a decent amount of metal in it, that's definitely going to be recycled, as it has value. A policy like this could cause environmental damage, but saying that it's inevitable is just defeatist. In fact the manufacturer is the one with the knowledge to recycle stuff properly as they know what went into it. This is actually a way to work with the market. Any other option, other than just giving up, involves more government intervention.
There's also Stewart Brand style cradle-to-cradle design, where you build in features that allow recycling to be easy, that's really my goal when I say manufacturers should be responsible - change the design