Reader Response: The E-Cycling Debate
New laws requiring manufacturers to provide recycling electronics are rapidly catching on. Since 2003, 19 states have passed such laws, and similar legislation has been introduced in 12 other states.
Lately, companies have begun to expand their efforts to make recycling safer for workers and more convenient for consumers. However, e-waste recycling rates in the U.S. are hovering just below a skimpy 20 percent. Photo: MSNBC.com
But electronic companies are fighting back. According to The Wall Street Journal, many manufacturers argue that recycling programs are too costly.
The Consumer Electronics Association, a New York-based organization that represents 2,000 electronics companies, poses an alternative: a city ordinance that would require companies to pick up obsolete electronics door-to-door, an effort that could cost the city $200 million annually.
Since the digital switch in June, thousands of television sets have ended up in landfills as some residents don’t have access to electronic recycling facilities.
The Electronics TakeBack Coalition says that too few TV manufacturers have recycling programs, and many that actually do exist are inadequate.
The debate is growing among manufacturers and recycling industries as recycling fraud and contamination cases continue to abound. Some manufacturers have even banned exporting e-waste abroad in order to combat these obstacles.
While companies such as Panasonic have expanded their recycling programs with drop-off sites, there are still several areas that are not represented.
So, let’s go to our readers.
Would you pay a couple of extra bucks for that iPod or new computer if that fee guaranteed the product would be recycled at the end of its life? Or, would you prefer to not pay the fee and have consumers take the responsibility for their electronics recycling?
Rachel White
posted on July 7th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I would pay a couple of extra bucks in a heartbeat! As your post correctly notes, e-waste is a huge problem: According to the EPA, the United States generated over 3 tons of electronic waste in the year of 2007 alone. Close to 85% of this was landfilled or incinerated here. Most of the remaining 15% was shipped overseas for recycling; however overseas “recycling” frequently occurs under conditions that are unsafe for workers and the environment (for more, check out http://www.theelectronicstakeback.com). Clearly the systems that are currently in place in this country for recycling electronics aren’t working. It’s hard to even call existing recycling programs “systems” as they are frequently hard to access, haphazard and confusing.
I consider myself lucky to live in a city (Newton, MA) that collects electronics for recycling–even though I have to deliver them myself to the recycling center which is, of course, only open limited hours. But where do my old electronics go from there? I don’t know the answer to this question and I’m not sure I want to know.
Consumers, manufacturers, and government need to work together to solve this problem. I would be relieved to pay a little more for my next electronic gadget if I knew that the old one would be responsibly recycled.
Shane DiGiorgio
posted on July 8th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I would prefer to not pay a fee but that’s only because I know of a drop off center in my area that is 99% landfill free. I live in Huntington Beach, California & have found that Orange Coast Computers & Recycling is free, convenient, keeps normal business hours 6 days a week. They will even unload your E-waste from your vehical. http://www.monitorheaven.com
Why should I have to pay more, when I know my electronics will be disposed of responsibly?
Maybe if there was some way to get my $ back if say I used an EPA approved Electronic waste recycler.
Lyon
posted on July 8th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
+1 on that. I’d gladly pay an extra few bucks to guarantee that the product I am buying will have an acceptable end-of-life disposal. For more on Life Cycle Analysis listen to this clip: http://www.morethansound.net/samples/Ecological-Awareness_in_15-minutes.mp3
In the third section, Daniel Goleman talks with Greg Norris, whose open-source LCA platform offers ubiquitous empowerment for businesses to quantify and lessen the negative environmental impacts of each product’s life cycle.