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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
California's new electronics recycling program will treat monitors and flat screens like bottles and cans. But is that the best way to keep high-tech toxins out of the local landfill?
Aug 17, 2004 | This fall, Californians will start paying $6 to $10 more for every monitor, flat panel, laptop and TV sold in the state -- the result of a recycling law that will take effect Nov. 1.
The goal: to encourage citizens to get rid of deceased toxic electronics responsibly, instead of dumping old monitors and other high-tech detritus on the street corner.
Under the new law, the fee will be collected at the cash register -- or the electronic shopping cart -- and the money will be used to compensate collectors and recyclers at the end of the product's life. The electronics legislation is modeled on California's bottle and can recycling programs, which assess a few cents on every Budweiser or Diet Sprite sold.
But activists who've agitated for years to keep toxic electronic products from leaching lead into U.S. landfills or from being foisted on the developing world aren't all that enthusiastic about the California plan.
They question whether the $6 to $10 fee will cover the cost of getting rid of cathode ray tubes, leaded glass, and the lead solder that holds everything together. They worry that the new recycling fund will be speedily exhausted as consumers rush to clear out the backlog of computer junk collecting dust in garages and closets. And they are upset that the law effectively permits manufacturers to pass the cost of recycling on to the consumer, instead of encouraging them to make products easier to recycle or less toxic from the get-go.
The California approach -- which, as is often the case with California initiatives, is likely to be copied by other states -- offers a sharp contrast to the comprehensive computer-recycling approach adopted by the European Union. There, to the satisfaction of recycling activists, computer companies are required by law to take back all hardware and recycle it themselves, an approach that has given those companies a powerful incentive to design their products in such a way as to make recycling cost-efficient and easy.
"If manufacturers [in California] had to contribute, they would take more consideration in the design of the product," says Sheila Davis, a project director for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, one of the groups waging a nationwide Computer Take Back Campaign. "As it turned out, the manufacturers have absolutely no responsibility."
Davis favors a policy along the lines of one that will go into effect in Maine in 2006. Like the E.U., Maine will require computer and TV manufacturers to be responsible for recycling electronics themselves. At present, Maine and California represent the leading edge of high-tech recycling in the United States. But in terms of impact, the influence of California's actions will likely dwarf Maine's -- which is why, with one notable exception, computer hardware manufacturers are almost certainly cheering the Californian law.
