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HP Wants Manufacturers To Bear PC Disposal Costs
Makarand writes "The Mercury News is
reporting that HP,
which had earlier persuaded the Governor to veto an innovative e-waste measure, has changed its mind and
is
throwing its weight behind California's e-waste
bill which would require PC manufacturers
to bear the cost of PC disposal.
This reversal by HP is close upon the heels of a a
series
of articles, carried by the Mercury News, detailing how the industry relied on cheap overseas labor to make a profits and at
the same time distanced itself from the responsibilities of dead PC disposal."
Notice that he said PC manufacturers should bare the burden. So when a PC gets manufactured in Bob's garage, they have to pay the burden. I am sure that it really targeted at companies like Gateway and Dell because they are built on the factory floor in the US, I doubt that companies that get their PC's manufactured in Taiwan will have to pay the fee.
Why not model it after the recyclable can and bottle programs that New England states and other areas have adopted? The consumer pays 5 cents extra per can or bottle, and then is refunded when he returns it to a recycling facility.
Obviously, the scope and content of the program would be different, and more challenging. And the logistics is a lot bigger problem. But with PC prices hitting $500 and less, perhaps a program like that would be feasible.
Laws like this do nothing but raise costs for consumers. Does anyone in their right mind think HP, etc., will simply eat the cost of this? No. The only reason they're doing it is because it's in California (home base of American liberalism), and if they don't, they'll be totally demonized by militant environmentalists and human rights activists playing on your emotions rather than hard, scientific data.
What about all those frigin "free" AOL disks being sent to our homes? I suggest AOL to be forced to for recycling (like a 5 cent deposit for cans). The idea is basically an extenstion of what certain people are already doing. Similar ideas been already mention on slashdot and CNN
Basically my idea is, when people recieve these "junk" AOL disks, they should be able to drop of these disks, at a certified, recycling plant to get a small return (for their recycling effor). Like 5 cents per a disk. The 5 cents would be paid by AOL. This way, the dump sites would have less waste to dispose.
Something like this would require a federal law to be implimented and enforced. Perhaps the US Post Office (and other mailing places) would take the deposit and return when the cd's are returned.
Any ideas on this?
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
I lived in New Hampshire for sixteen years, and they were the only state around there that didn't have the added price to recyclables. When I was a boy scout, we would collect as many of these cans as possible, and bring them to Mass. to recycle them, collecting the money and using it to fund our troop. This brought in somewhere in the vicinity of $600 per year. This was all well and good for us, but the recycling companies were losing that $600, plus the money from everyone else from out of state who never pay this "recycling tax".
A program like this only works if people in every state (every country?) Pay the same amount, so you can't simply take your PC across the border to the next state and make an extra $50 on it (assuming recycling costs are higher). For every extra $50 you make this way, that's $50 that the company trying to do the "right thing" loses.
~CODEmage~
P.S. When my boy scout troop realized that this was wrong, we stopped, and moved to other alternatives. We found a recycling place in New Hampshire that would pay per pound of aluminum, and although we made less money, we weren't ripping anyone off.
What is the point!
The point is that the total cost of a PC is the cost of producing, selling, and delivering it, plus the cost of disposing of it when it becomes trash.
At present in the US (unlike some other countries) only the first 3 of these are paid by the buyer. The last cost, the cost of disposing of it, is paid by the taxpayer, who gets no say in which PC was bought. So market forces will ignore the cost of disposal. A PC which is identical to another, except that it is cheaper to dispose of, will not have an advantage in the marketplace - although for overall economic efficiency, it obviously should have. The solution is to make the buyer pay the total cost instead of just part of it, which is what this measure does (the manufacturer will pass the cost along to the consumer). OK?
I try to be fair to these companies, but the salmon on doubt keeps nibbling on my toes... For a thought experiment, suppose California's e-Waste bill goes through, and suddenly the responsibility for disposal is removed from the consumer?
First, I won't be surprised if California signs this one, as it would clear the State from the costs of disposal, clearing up lots of tax dollars for the other social programs in their nearly-bankrupt budget. The Politicians can then say, look at all the money this bill saved!
Second, I don't see "distributor" named, I see "manufacturer". With a quick Google search, I can see that Hewlet Packard happens to own advanced supply-chain-management software, where HP can purchase cheap parts from other manufacturers, put them in their machines, then scoot them out the door. Quote: "A plastic printer cover, for example, may start its life overseas as goop at a resin manufacturer, which works with a plastics compounder to provide the material to an injection molder. That injection molder, in turn, sells its finished parts to a manufacturer, which puts the product together for HP."
Wouldn't you think that since HP out-sources so much of their manufacturing, what's to stop them from saying, "I didn't manufacture this, our records show Wang's Plastics did, so it's their responsibility to manage disposal!" HP, and all the other big "Silicon Valley" computer companies will just pass the buck back to the original manufacturer, HP will keep their profits, and the little supplier will be hosed.
Lets model this after the bottle/can recycling effort, with a little twist...
Lets say...add on $100 to the cost of any PC, printer, and monitor (adjust the list as needed). When you return the item to a proper recycling location, you get the $100 back. (pre-made PCs only, home-built ones we'll let the lawyers deal with).
But...to let the $$ influence things a bit, make it so that the $100 can be adjusted down if the PC is made with more recyclable products, based on certain parts or technologies.
Maybe it would take more than $100, but...that seems to solve a couple of the inherent problems.
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
Every computer is made with recycled parts. Plastic, aluminum, silicon, hell, even the bread-boards that the circuits are put on could be recycled. The clock battery is just about the only part which is not easilly recylced.
The problem is, computers and computer materials have become so cheap that it is almost never worth the expense of hiring somebody to bust the thing up into separate materials. Even parts that don't need to be broken down for recycling could be re-used, but aren't. Anybody want a free AT motherboard? How about a 9" floppy disk drive? Didn't think so.
This will also be the case with that NEC "Eco" in 3-5 years. Obsolete computers are worth less than their raw materials.
The best way to dispose of an old computer is to not dispose of it. Give it away to somebody who still has use for it. Hell, even an old 286 or Apple II would be a great tool for a young kid to learn about how computers work. Building an operational computer out of junkyard parts would be a hell of an education.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It might at first, but it would also give manufacturers an incentive to create more friendly or reusable products and materials. This would allow them to charge less and gain market share. Check out Cradle to Cradle (which was reviewed on
As another poster noted, you pay for it one way or another whether in up-front monetary cost or in destroyed environment and depleted natural resources.
used in the guts of your computer. They really arn't safe in a land fill, the same with cell phones and other electronic devices, batteries, etc. These sorts of things which arn't "inert" and actually are problematic for land-fills should all have paid-up recycling so that there isn't an insentive for the general public to "dump" the used stuff rather than delivering it to the appropriate containment facility.
I'm not so sure about "recycling" as much as making sure the stuff doesn't get into landfills where it can make its way into ground water, etc.
Tires are problematic beacuse they are a fire hazard, but 99% of the other stuff in the household arn't anywhere near as bad as computers.
And, far from paying more taxes under this system, you, as a consciencuous PC user, will pay less - well, insofar as anyone pays less taxes. Your local and state governments will not be overly burdened by the costs of getting rid of everyone else's unwanted PC hardware - that burden will be paid for.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.