Skip to main content

National Electro-Scrap Policy Heating Up Again


Pay close attention to those piles of computers on your loading docks and in storage rooms at work, and in your garage, attics, and sheds at home. A number of proposals are popping up again about a national e-waste recycling policy. Maybe you'll be able to get rid of them (or the next batch) and feel confident they are being handled properly.

The groundswell may in part be a result of Washington state's recent passage of legislation requiring the industry to implement a statewide electronics collection and recycling program beginning in 2009. The legislation establishes the Washington Materials Management and Financing Authority. Washington joins Massachusetts, California, Maryland, and Maine with such a mandate.

State mandates are what happens when the federal government does not take the lead on solving problems of national scale. If a few more states get out in front on these issues the computer industry is going to begin to taste the fruits of their indecision and allegiance to profits-without-responsibility.

Several years ago stakeholders from industry, government, environmental and consumer groups got close to an agreement with the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI), but in the final days of work electronics manufacturers were unable to agree on how to structure and finance a national program.

A new group has been meeting on and off for the past year, however, looking at certification programs for recyclers. The issue of e-waste dumping in developing countries, prison labor, and fair trade are major issues. (see the link below for information on the Basel Action Network, a group dedicated to controlling the globalization of toxic trade).

And the advocacy for some type of national recovery program now includes Wal-Mart, the National Solid Waste Management Association (although they still maintain there are no proven health hazards associated with electronics disposal), Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba (developing a product in conjunction with Wal-Mart), and Amazon.com. Even the US Postal Service is getting into the act actively seeking partners to establish a national cell phone a printer cartridge recycling program.

In the end, Electro-Scrap represents a highly complex set of issues. It's too early to tell which way the wind is going to blow, but it seems clear that this is an area where the notion of Extended Producer Responsibility will get played out once and for all. The computer and softward industries drive much of the U.S. economy and the basis for their profits is a new age version of "planned obsolescence." Lead-embedded computer monitors and television sets (many of which will become junk over the next decade as this country fades into High-Definition TV) should not be piled up in landfills or burned in incinerators. Without national standards and full, comprehensive, binding rules for the end of life for electronic components, consumers (and that includes institutions and businesses) will continue to pay the price of disposal every two years or so when it's time to upgrade technologies.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Short-Sighted Buffoonery: Send me in coach!

I'm getting ready to re-enter the fray. I recently agreed to take on a job in the City of Philadelphia that I can't provide details on, but it's not soon enough apparently. Leaders in Washington and state governments all over the country are doing their best to turn solving the climate change problem into another example of oafish, mercenary, short-sighted, buffoonery. Check out the rather direct posting at the Center for American Progress today, "Facing Reality." I'm fighting mad. You should be too. Personally, I've been on the sidelines way too long and I'm itching to get back in the game. Yesterday, I listened to the news that President Obama is authorizing $54 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear power
2 comments
Read more

The Path to Green

A January 23rd article by Usha Lee McFarling in the LA Times, "Studies Support Emissions Plans" gives the lie to the notion that mitigation of greenhouse gases will be bad for the economy. This is an extremely important issue. One study produced by the Center for Clean Air Policy says, "Based on our independent analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation (GHG) options for the State of California, we conclude that Governor Schwarzenegger's goal of reducing GHG emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 can be met at no net cost to California consumers." Another study performed by the California Climate Center at Berkeley found that climate protection measures proposed for the state would boost economic activities, creating 20,000 new jobs and increasing gross state product by $60 billion by the end of the state's mitigation date of 2020. The executive summary for their 10-chapter report says, "Preliminary modeling indicates that just eight policies that were analyze...
1 comment
Read more

Bashing Recycling for Confusion and Profit

The following essay is a work in progress. I invite all readers to give me criticism and direction. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recently, the ABC show, Good Morning America , ran a segment interviewing columnist and author Stephen Dubner (co-author of the book Freakonomics ) on whether recycling works. You can watch it by clicking here . While Dubner's basic argument about recycling turns on the idea of market economics (which is sensible), he also says some really weird things that drew me back into the good old early 1990s when bashing recycling was the sport of kings. In particular, Dubner says that plastic water bottle recycling doesn't make sense because it costs more to recycle water bottles (they aren't as valuable as aluminum cans) than it does to make new ones. He also says that old newspapers have such a low value that cities often simply landfill them after they go to the recycling center. He doesn't really provide us with...
3 comments
Read more