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California Considering Recycling Fees on PCs
Jeff writes: "It looks like two US senators are introducing bills that would impose recycling fees on new computer systems sold. These bills look to cover every high-tech product a consumer might buy, including computer and video monitors, desktop and notebook PCs, and handheld gadgets."
PEP National Directory of Computer Recycling Programs
You can go there to see what options you have on recycling computer parts in your area.
I live in Belgium and we got a tax on every electronic item sold, this is called the Recupel Tax, this tax is used for recycling. The rate is different on each category of items, for example a mobile phone is about 0.5 but a computer is around 10. I personaly think this is a good idea.
That's OK; most Californians I know can't name the two U.S. Senators they elected (Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein)
Its not quite as difficult as you think to recycle electronic equipment, although there are some difficulties.
In Europe, the law around electronic equipment works as follows. The company that produces the equipment is responsible for its care, use, and disposal before the sale and AFTER the consumer is done with it. While the consumer owns it, its their responsiblity. But when the consumer is done with it, it goes back to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The OEM then disassembles the equipment, and recycles what it can. If the plastic can be reground and reprocessed, that is done. Glass (where possible) is melted down, all metal components are melted down as well (or reused for the same model or other model electronic equipment. Screws, bolts and brackets for example). Difficult items to recycle include circuit boards (epoxy plastic, metal (some of it toxic), silicon and semiconductors), cathode ray tubes, and sometimes the plastic.
What the European OEMs try to do is reuse what they can and incenerate the rest. If the plastic cannot be reused (off color, decomposed), they'll just burn it up and recycle the energy gained from combustion. However, materials that don't burn (semiconductors, silicon, etc.) are left as slag in the incenerator, and also are concentrated in toxic elements which can leach into ground water. How to deal with this waste is currently a big sticking point for the recyling of electronics waste. There are some refining techniques that one can use to separate out the elements in this inorganic "slag", but, they're quite expensive, and, there currently is no desire/regulations in place to reuse this slag material. Electronic circuit board OEMs and chip OEMs don't want to use material from this slag for fear of contamination may ruin finely tuned electronic properties, which are often affected by minute impurities. Part of the reuse taxes that EU citizens pay goes towards research to solve this issue, and set up an infrastructure to get the whole recyling system to work.
There are systems in place to get this to work, so you just have to give them time to catch up and get fully implimented. It took 10+ years to get PET and HDPE (#1 and #2 plastic) to the level where it was widely implimented and cost effective. Electronics recycling has probably only been going on for 3 years now, so give it time.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
In a similar vein, I read something once to the effect that all the trash the United States would produce in 300 years would fit in a landfill measuring 30 miles per side and 30 feet deep. We're not exactly in danger of running out of space.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
It's worked in Germany. Don't impose the fee on the consumer. Impose the fee on the manufacturer. In Germany they started charging toy manufacturers for packaging on toys. Instantly the toy manufacturers just started putting the Barbies on the shelf, without the giant unnecessary box. Here California could charge the monitor manufacturers money for every one of their products that ends up in the municipal waste stream, and use that money to recycle the product. Charge a fee that's much higher than the cost of just recycling it themselves, and they create a financial incentive for the company to set up its own recycling program. The company may even give the consumers back a small 'deposit' fee to create an incentive for the customers to return the monitors, computers, whatever.
Our industrial economy needs to become a closed cycle and this is the first step. Now that we know how to build monitors and computers, we need to figure out how to build them so that they're easy to take apart and modular enough that old components can just be re-used. Re-using the gallium and mercury and other raw materials is a first step, but really a lot of components can just be re-used. Do you really need a new component that's ten percent smaller? Or can you just use the old one? Now if you're talking 90% smaller then yes you may need the new component. But for many needs old parts can be recycled.