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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."
Shouldn't the CD-R manufacturers bear some cost as well? And what about my worn out tires...
WANTED: Good sig, funny, concise yet somewhat esoteric.
That HP would support this, seeing as how so many Compaq and HP computers are worthy only of Disposal...
Craenor
My initial thought is that yes, they should bear the costs. Computers have all sorts of nastiness inside of them, and *someone's* gotta take care of it. However, where do you draw the line? Styrofoam? Plastics? Bleach? Can't have the lifetime costs built into everything - that would make just about everything price-prohibitive.
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.
As far as I know, the NEC Powermate Eco is the only computer that has been built with the foresight to have recyclable parts. A look at just how bad things have gotten (re: computer salvaging) can be found here.
Anything that increases the barrier of entry is a good thing to a huge business competing with many small ones.
Oh, and can I please do one of those soviet russia lines again?
"In Soviet Russia, PCs dispose of YOU!"
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.
How sad is it that this hugely important piece of legislation is not swayed by the voters but rather by the money required to buy them.
It makes me ill.
Kill Trolls Dead. Here's
HP wants its customers to pay for PC disposal, but it knows that regular people would oppose legislation forcing them to do such things. So they make a chivalrous 'pro-environmental' move to legislate that the corporations should pay for disposal.
But of course the regular people will still pay because the corporations will just factor disposal cost into the purchase price.
It's the same result as making people directly pay for disposal, but HP looks a lot better and there's no public outcry.
Nevertheless, I give kudos to HP for recognising that we can't just ship off all our old computers to China and must act responsibly to dispose of them in an environmentally and socially responsible way.
In Virginia there's a tire disposal fee you pay when you get new tires.
Best Slashdot Co
Judging from the pile of antiquated technology in my basement, I wasn't aware that computers were actually disposable... come on, I know some of you have the same corner of your basement where there's still a 286 motherboard in a pile somewhere.
I'm glad to see a technology maker taking this on. I know that it's going to result in higher costs to consumers in the end, but honestly the cost will be trivial compared to the total value of the item you are purchasing. I imagine it's not the exact same bill (I don't have the bill in front of me) but it could simply be the way that something is worded that significantly changed the stance of HP/Compaq on the issue. Waste, whether it is technology related, or other, is a problem for everybody... we all create it, however few want to deal with it... Kudos to HP/Compaq for getting on the bandwagon... Glad to see someone trying to make it a truly clean(er) industry.
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
this is an interesting trend which I think I like
If adopted, proponents say, such a law could pave the way for federal regulations on computer recycling, How about national recycling of more commonly thrown away things like glass, plastic, paper etc...? It may be too expensive for smaller communities but it would be much more efficient if done on a national level. Sure it would be nice to be able to recycle PC's, but i throw out alot more beer bottles than i do computers :P
My bugbear isn't PC's and Consumer Electronics so much as composite packaging. See those drink boxes they've been pushing the last ten years? How do you cost effectively recycle paper/aluminum/plastic containers? And I don't mean just crush them into a little cube and use them for filler in junk made of molded various plastics in park benches, etc. The packaging industry has a lot to answer for, too, as landfills are really cloggin up with composite junk you can't recycle.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1. Manufacture mountains of PC-related waste.
2. Promote laws to subsidize PC waste disposal.
3. Apply for those selfsame government subsidies.
4. Profit!
We all know who's eventually going to bear the costs in the end. I wouldn't be surprised to soon start seeing an "end-of-life" disposal fee included with the cost of the computer.
This would be kind of tricky because you have to keep track of each and every part. Each part would have its own recycling or waste fee. Parts that are wickedly bad for the environment will cost more to recycle than others. Some parts of computer monitors contain really horrible stuff (read: lead, cadmium, mercury) that should never be thrown in a landfill.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
But what about automobiles? Who's paying for the disposal of them? How about old stereos and all the different media types like records and cassettes?
... ?) then I'll be impressed by corporate action.
Great that a big company appears to be concerned about their product, but I think there are additional fish to fry. When Pontiac takes responsibility for all the trash they're generating (double meaning intended
I guess geeks don't see the disposal of computers as a major issue, though. We have stacks of old computers in our bedrooms with everything humming along nicely. whether it's doing anything or not, we're not likely to throw it out (:
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The real reason they are doing this is because they want to raise the barriers to entry for new competitors. It doesn't require much of an investment to become a PC manufacturer (anyone can assemble the parts and sell them online out of their house). The HP/Compaq juggernaught can afford this, smaller manufacturers cannot.
If you're Republican, and are offended by my comment or mod it down, it proves you have a small weiner.
Don't say I didn't warn you...
I'm still waiting for the recyclable paper pc. I've yet to even see one of those paper cell phones, though...
:)
I guess we'd have quite a few cooling hurdles to overcome before the paper pc roles around, though
My sig sucks.
Am I the only one who remembers PC components with a near-infinite lifetime? I just threw out, not because it died, but because my S.O. complained about the floor space, the very first Linux box I ever built. A 386sx with 8MB of RAM, ISA NE2000 clone NIC, and a 420MB Seagate disk. It still booted. The motherboard dated around 1990. Nowadays, it seems that stuff is replaced within a few years, NOT because of the endless MS upgrade treadmill, but because things simply crap out...
With a spate of recent PC component reliability problems (HD warranties, bad capacitors, etc.), we're shifting to a more disposable PC market (ever wonder why a whole system, incl. monitor, can be had for less than $500 ?)
The solution is to purchase quality components, avoid the "upgrade your HW or die" FUD, fight off PHBs who want shiny new P4-3GHz boxes, and instead concentrate on value.
THAT'S the solution to PC recycling costs - stop throwing so many away!
I'm still using a box I built from components thrown away by various clients, it suits me perfectly.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
How will this put them out of business if it is a flat disposal fee that is attached to all computers? Everybody will have their prices going up $xx.xx. Perhaps you can further enlighten me to your logic...
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
Wow, I would love to have your outlook on things.
... doesn't it strike you as funny that:
Too bad we live in a society where companies are expected, gasp, to make money. How do they do that? They charge for goods and services.
Who pays for these goods and services? Their customers.
Who are their customers? You and me.
We'll end up paying for it all.
As for cigs
1) All but five states have already spent their tobacco money on non-tobacco related expenditures?
2) That the tobacco companies were allowed to continue to sell cigs? Why if they are so bad? The states need the money from taxes.
3) That states knowing that cigs are so bad continue to tax them at a high rate and use the money for their general revenue funds.
Regardless of whether you think PCs should be disposed of properly or not you're kidding yourself if you think this impacts the company one bit. It doesn't. It allows them to charge for it.
Don't believe me? Look at your phone bill under the Universal Service Charge.
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?
If you guys had bothered to read the article you would have noticed that recent coveraage over HP's practices in China were one of the motivating factors in making this decision. And yes it's much easier to pass a cost on to a customer when it's law. Let's remember that computers are highly toxic Your average 19 inch moniter have 9 lbs of leaded glass to prevent radiation exposure. Here's my favorite quote
Hard scientific data?Here you go
Here
I mean really to be conservative, means to conserve. Being a conservative means that you actually want to leave a cultural and environmental legacy to your children. When's the last time you were able to go fishing in Silicon Valley and eat the fish? Certainly not in the last 20 years due to the high heavy metal content of the fish. Every state in the union has health advisories on the heavy metal content in rivers. Take a look here at the US governments own studies
>EPA Maryland for example. Notice that every ssingle pollutant is an industry pollutant. This even impacts the land of a Thousand Lakes (Minnesota)Fish Consumption
I love posters that can't think about the consquences of their actions. Once you have kids you begin wondering about the type of legacy you leave behind. I guess we can just tell our kids "Sorry the environment is toxic but some slashdotter wanted to save $35." Get real
Thalasar
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?
Going forward, this is an excellent idea. But what about the existing mess?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
What a bunch of baloney. After my house burned down (due to neighbor's stupidity), all the old computer hardware formerly acting as door stops are hauled to the junkyard along with the kids' GI Joe's and Harry Potter crap. Does Hasbro or Disney have to pay up for their garbage?
A much more important initiative would be to tax the fast food industry for all the landfill fodder they produce for every kids' meal.
Perhaps HP feels that, since they are now a very large corporation (they were a large corporation before, so I guess they are now a HUGE corporation), they can afford to engage in practices designed to hurt their competetors bottom line, even if it hurts them in doing so. Bonus points for making yourself look good in the process.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
... with the smaller manufacturers?
What constitutes a PC? A motherboard? What if I upgrade my motherboard? This legislation would raise too many questions for the small Mom n' Pop operations. I just can't see where the money should come from.
It just seems as if the only way to calculate the cost for an actual PC to recycle is to get the cost when it comes time to recycle it!
-Montag
People actually dispose of their old computers? I still have every computer I've ever purchased. (2 are running full-time and the third sits in my attic awaiting a monitor (or switch to work with the other 2) for Christmas.) My parents even still have their first few computers (Apple II, AppleII clone, 386, 486) burried somewhere in their basement.
:)
The old computers should always be kept, whether it's to scavenge for parts or just to make a science project (or BattleBot) look cool.
Karma: NaN
This means HP has found an economical way to dispose of waste that they think would give them a competitive advantage over their competitors if they were all forced to pay disposal fees.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
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.
I loathe this mentality. EVERYTHING exists for the bottom line, big business, small business, non profits, governments, my wallet, everything. Businesses, large or small, are in business to make money. Whoever said that was wrong? You seem to imply that it's morally wrong for a company to want to make money.
I would actually disagree with your statement and its related inference. "Big Business" thinks about a lot more than the bottom line, they think about bad press, political influence, etc. Granted, it's likely related to the bottom line, but my boss (over all of 9 people in my company) thinks about the bottom line just as much, if not more than, Carly Fiorni. And I care about my personal "bottom line" as much as Fiorni cares about HP's.
HP and other companies certainly could do this on their own, and if they TRULY cared, they would. I take my cans, newspaper, milk jugs, etc., to the city recycling place regularly. I don't get paid for it, it's not in my monetary interest, but I do it because I support recycling. If HP thought similarly, they would simply do it and not need to pass a law. Seems it's only about eliminating competition from the little guys, which is sad.
Rammed P.C.housing. same concept as rammed earth. ,monitors,keyboards,printers,scanners,etc.pack em in with something heavy and pour acrylic,concrete or some snot to hold it all together and VIOLA,youve recycled the nutty california way.even enclosed hazardous materials to protect the environment.hmmm now that im thinkin of it.they could use nukewaste the same way.
This really fits the CALenvironut lifestyle.Just make wallforms,drop in p.c.s
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Why not design computers to be remanufacturable? That is, parts can be reused (like with toner cartridges), chemicals extracted, resold, whatever. Maybe HP realizes they can do this in other businesses, why not computers? EU is driving a lot of this, and yes cars are next. Okay maybe not for a while.
If the price of a box is artificially low because of abuse of the commons, or the disparity in flow characteristics of capital versus labor, or other official or unofficial subsidies, we end up paying for it one way or another.
If we leased the thing instead of buying it, the OEMs would have incentive both to design for remanufacture, and to keep prices down.
I think it would be better to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on this kind of problem than to study something painfully obscure. Old computers parts are loaded with heavy metals and are a water quality disaster waiting to happen. Recycling methods optimized for converting old mother boards and electronic parts would yield such a tangible human benefit.
Kudos to California and HP for trying to find a way around this problem.
Gray
It's all that damn blue smoke. It's a real bitch on the environment.
I think they need a similar tax on devices that function primarily upon mirrors and vapor too!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's not quite the same result. If the manufacturer is resposible, then consumers of computers bear the cost. In the current system, everyone bears the cost whether they're buying computer equipment or not.
Yup, and it's only going to get worse.
It has been mentioned in magazines like EE Times that the smaller the process size (0.18 micron, etc.) the shorter-lived the component will be. Thermal cycling (heating and cooling), and electron migration (where the current erodes the metal interconnects) mean that stuff these days will only last a few years of continuous power-on time.
I guess that's not so bad, it is just that some of the stuff made in the late 1980's and early 1990's will last just about forever after they make it out of the initial failure zone. Or at least the silicon will, the wire bonds may not, however...
It should be the consumer's. Consumers that are taxed for removal makes more sense, since they are the ones throwing the waste out. It would make people think twice about buying and then removing their consumeables. "Returning to the manufacturer" makes little sense, they are unlikely to use the x year-old-design, so now you are seeing shipping PC's back and forth between distribution points just to avoid waste, but causing waste in other ways...
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
not to get all more environmentally holier-than-thou or anything, but we can't even guess at "total cost" of many things.
Chances are that our current legacy will out-live us by more than seven generations, like it once did.
It is about time that "profits" get locked away until it can be proven that there does not need to be "clean-up".
I guess if we can't save the planet, we might as well try to put it out of its misery.
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
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.
Why am I giving you all this information? Because this is not a simple recycling problem, period. This goes all the way back to the root: electronics manufacturing and assemblt of PWBs. The EU is flexing their muscles by pushing the RoHS and WEEE directives. HP has been planning for these two directives since they were scheduled for a vote in the EU (and RoHS has since been passed). The entire time their plan has been to push it down to the supply chain parnters. This has not changed in over a year, nor will it going forward. Why should it? With HP's purchasing power, they say "jump" and their suppliers say "how high, SIR!"
"Content's a bitch."
Whoever said that was wrong? You seem to imply that it's morally wrong for a company to want to make money.
>>>>>>>>>
There are a lot of intellectual circles that believe that this is wrong. Not so much existing to make money but existing *only* to make money. Before spouting off, you should realize that not everyone shares the same (in my opinion bleak and simplistic) worldview.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If you knowingly create a problem then you should knowingly have to be a part of fixing the problem. For example, if I buy my car for transportation I need to pay the state based upon the emissions of the car (hence higher registration fees for trucks vs cars etc) and thats the price I pay. Kow that there are certain restraints put on the manufacturer of my vehicle that says they can't sell me a car that gets 2 miles to the gallon unless they and I pay hefty fees. The circumvention of this for the computer industry is saying- hey you can build whatever you want, even pack it in styrafoam (which they need to stop doing anyways) and if you are going to do that then you need to take on some of the responsability for the destruction you will knowingly create. I don't think the company needs to bear ALL of the burden, but the consumer and the company should bear it together.
We _try_ to donate them, but whenever we donate, we need the reciever to sign a contract holding _them_ liable for disposal costs, our legal department makes us do this, for good reasons, if the institutions we donate to dump the computers, and they are traced back to us, we have to pay huge fines.
Whenever we mention an agreement like that most of these organizations back away and look for thier computers elsewhere. They want nothing to do with disposal fees. About once a year we pay a lot of money to have all our old computers disposed of.
If the computer manufacturerers became liable for disposal costs, then we wouldn't have to worry about them, and we could donate the computers at will.
As a native Californian, I would like to formally apologize for the puddin' headed, Birkenstock wearing, blithering lunacy that takes place in our state legislature.
As a former HP customer, well...I really don't have anything to apologize for, do I?
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
You have intriguing ideas and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Easy PC dispoal: www.ebay.com. Sheesh, did California forget they had that?
Heh. First we start "selling" the names on our football and baseball stadiums for extra cash, perhaps soon "The Honorable Senator from Walt Disney" will become more than just a snide remark made about a particular senator from South Carolina, but a bona-fide title bought and paid-for with corporate money.
Just imagine having to choose between Joe "Dell" Schmoe and John "HP" Doe on the ballot. Dude! Yer goin' to the White House!
While I agree that it is a good idea to make sure computer components should be properly recycled, this is not a law we need.
1. Large computer manufacturers will always have a legal time full of slimeball lawyers who will find a loophole, or put something into an EULA that a computer user agrees to by opening the box to avoid the fees. Even if the manufacturer doesn't skip out on the fees, they can afford to pay them, but smaller manufacturers might not.
2. This will hurt any small manufacturer, who doesn't have the resources to pay recycle fees. I know of dozens of small computer stores in the San Diego area that build systems, and will be hurt badly by such a law. It wouldn't surprise me that this is the real reason HP supports this.
3. The responsibility of recycling should fall on the consumer. Consumers should be encouraged to re-use older components or to donate their old
PCs rather than sending them back to the manufacturer to be scrapped.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Note that this IS a tax and it DOES affect poor more than the rich. So much for the liberals being there to stand up for the poor. :)
If all the small PC stores were required to put these requirements and costs in place, they would have a harder time competing with the big boys. This type of law would drive out a lot of the smaller competition. Keep the cost of business up and the barrier to entry high. Keep the smaller competition down and out.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I loathe this mentality. EVERYTHING exists for the bottom line, big business, small business, non profits, governments, my wallet, everything. Businesses, large or small, are in business to make money. Whoever said that was wrong? You seem to imply that it's morally wrong for a company to want to make money.
First off, you say this like it is a law of physics. This may be your interpretation of how the world works, but it most assuredly is not a hard fact. Second, under most of the time it is not wrong for a corporation or an individual to seek profit. But there are times when the right to make a profit infringes upon other rights, and the right to make a profit is outweighed by those conflicting interests.
To take an extreme example: If BigBadCo decides to increase its profits through indentured servitude of its employees it has come into conflict with individual rights of freedom and will (and should) be prevented from acting in such a manner.
Or to take a more modern example, take Enron. Enron lied to investors and regulators about its financial situation. There are laws which are set up to prevent this sort of thing, even though they increase the cost of doing business. However, these are costs that are required for a healthy marketplace.
Just because something interferes with the ability of a corporation to make a profit does not make it ipso facto a bad thing. There is more to life than profit.
I love it how the commie talk comes out whenever anyone mentions that companies should take responsibility for the externalities they create. In this case, that externality is toxic waste in landfills from a large, high volume, virtually disposable product. We'll wind up paying for our computer waste later if we don't deal with it today.
Hopefully the law will be crafted so as to provide incentive for companies to produce less waste, more easily recycled parts, and less toxic components.
Well, first off - businesses are taxpayers. And many businesses just throw their computers into the standard garbage, thus avoiding any special waste disposal fees and putting the burden on everyone as opposed to specifically paying the cost themselves.
Every business I've worked at until the current one disposed of junk computer equipment by putting it in garbage bags and then placing it in the dumpster to be taken, I assume, to a landfill. This is against the law, I'm sure (since I know I'm not allowed to throw items like computer monitors away in my home trash), but they do it anyway.
See my above response. Most business I have worked for just throw computer equipment away with the regular trash, in the same dumpster, in the same bags. If you think someone digs through all the trash to see what needs special disposal, you're crazy.
I the problem is that many of the relatively new (and sometimes but not necessarilly younger) computer users don't appreciate the value of their computers. If you grew up back when computers were in excess of $4000 for a 386 with 130MB HDD you'd understand computers aren't as expendible as say..a toaster or microwave. Nobody needs a 2+Ghz CPU and GeForce 4 Ti to type documents, listen/rip music, and browse the web. A Pentium provides enough power for that.
Personally, for everything I own, I'll try to FIX it first before jumping to buy a newer, shinier one. Among the people I know, I can't think of anyone else who does this (spoiled ingrates...). I'll admit I still have several 486 mobos my dad grabed from work a few years ago after being replaced. They still work, so I'll either keep them or sell 'em cheap. They're not going in the trash.
$cat
Computer monitors, like TV sets, are already banned from landfills in nearly every municipality in the US. You can't throw a monitor in your trash, and if you try, the trash collector is not allowed to take it. Those who do face very stiff fines.
Computers themselves have almost no lead, and the clock battery is pretty much the only toxic element. (By the way, throwing away batteries in landfills... also illegal.)
This bill is not about cleanign up the environment. It gives us no assurance that HP (or whoever) will handle my discarded PC's more responsibly than I will. All it does is create a new barrier to entry for small computer makers.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If you would like to consider me bleak and simplistic, then I feel I must apologize for believing capitalism is a good thing. The same "intellectual circles" you site would likely find comfort in an environment where capitalism does not exist (read: communism, where it's all for the good of the people/state/etc.) and suddenly you have no incentive to succeed or improve yourself. Now that's what I call "bleak and simplistic."
The idea that PC manufacturers should pay for the disposal of old computers is silly. What other industry pays for the disposal of products after users decide they don't want them? Some might do this as a business practice but none of them (that I know of) are required by law to dispose of older products.
When you buy something it belongs to you. It is your personal property. And it it your job to dispose of it properly. Of course I wouldn't expect the leftist to understand this- most of them aren't too keen on the idea of personal property.
Now, you can only get your oil changed at one of the really big Oil Filter Changing companies. It's impossible to find anyone who'll change it who isn't part of a giant oil changing concern....Oh, wait. I'm talking bollocks. And White Box PC manufacturers can simply pay the disposal fee, something that's per-sale, like everyone else, like they did when ethernet boards became standard parts of modern computers, and hard drives became standard parts, etc, etc.
First, your bad analogy might be true. What kind of non-big oil affiliated lubricant can anyone purchase? Who else but big oil can recycle used oil?
Second, waste oil has buyers. Who's going to want to purchase your broken cell phone or PC?
Third, PCs are only a small chunk of the waste stream, unlike automotive oil. We've been throwing out electronic gadgets with transistors, solder, phospohrs and all for a long time now without concern. PCs have only been around since 1980 or so. Waste oil from automobiles was a demostrated hazard which had no larger contributors, except maybe carcenoginic aditives to gasoline.
What is really acomplished here and what's it going to cost? Are those costs worth the problem?
First, show me evidence of a problem. While improper disposal of PC's in China is reprehensible, I'd like to see some direct evidence that PCs on their own are poluting groudwater or other resources elswhere.
If you can demonstrate a problem, tell me the method and cost of proper disposal. I don't have a disposal problem myself because I have yet to throw away any PC I've ever owned. Yep, I've got the mother board for the first XT I bought in my closet and it would work if something better were not in it's case. Other computers I have are all 486 and above and are just as useful today as they were the day I bought them thanks to free software. Just the same, I'll take my things to the right place if you can show it's required.
In the mean time, quit talking bollocks. I've taken care of my things and don't want to pay a tax or see small vendors put out of business because large compnaies like HP and M$ have been irresponsible.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And I suppose that you are under the mistaken impression that the business does not pay to have that dumpster emptied?
Try not paying your garbage collection bills, see how quickly your old PC stays right where you left it.
Even if you were correct, why would this only apply to computers? Why not ALL garbage?
The problem is that if you make recycling too expensive for companies, it becomes a serious enforcement problem. It would actually be better for the environment if state and local governments just rolled it into the cost of waste disposal. Ideally the consumer would pay when they throw it away, that makes it their responsibility, as it should be. What this does is pass the buck to the manufacturers, since the govt finds it easier to regulate them. But this means more paperwork and cost for the little guy, which is harder on him, since HP can probably have a unit devoted to just disposal, unlike a mom-and-pop store.
Im all for internalizing costs, but nonpoint pollution is a real SOB to enforce, thats why the public sector exists, because even though we didnt do the pollution ourself (well not neccessarily) we all benefitted from it, and it hurts all of us, so why shouldnt we share the cost of it (at least the pollution that has already taken place). Besides, you cant retroactively charge for the computers already sold now can you? So who gets saddled with disposing them?
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
My dad has two dells, my sisters both have dells, my aunt has a gateway and a IBM Thinkpad, neighboor has a HP which replaced a Packard Bell, just worked on a friend of my mom's HP the other night. Other neighboor just bought an HP, and another neighboor has an HP. Only neighboor I know who has a white-box special also recently bought an HP.
/. crowd probably have the custom jobs, but with one exception, everyone I know who has a machine whose type I know is a namebrand.
I dunno - I know a lot of the
Nothing scientific here...just one experience.
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.
So how small an operation can afford Green Dot fees? The site you pointed at shows some marked disadvantages for those small companies:
The costs of the licence depend on the type of packaging and its weight. As a rule of thumb the cost of the licence is about £1 per Kg of packaging. The definition of packaging is wide and includes CD cases, straw and carrier bags for example. Small companies with low sales in Germany are required to pay their fees in advance whereas larger companies may make quarterly sales statements. At the end of the year all licencees must submit an audit report to show they have complied with the regulations.
So smaller companies must pay larger shipping costs and do so up front, where larger companies simply put a few spare file clerks on the case. Hmmmm. Your site also talks about how the EU has cited this as anti-competitive and abusive as well as wasteful. Thanks for the link, it's good to see what the old world looks like so we can appreciate how good things are here before we ruin them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There you go again, reducing things to a simple conflict between pure capitalism and pure communism, and pigeon-holing circles of thought into one group or another. Perhaps the biggest weakness of the prevailing thought pattern in the US is it's tendency to simplify all concepts to the point of absurdity. There is not a single school of that that believes unadultered capitalism is a bad thing. There is a wide range of people that don't believe in pure capitalism, and their ideals take the form of everything from slightly tempered capitalism to pure communism. The course of history indicates that those near the middle are most nearly right. Communism largely failed the world over, while pure capitalism failed as well - even in the United States. The current US is most nearly socialist, according to traditional (rather than modern) definitions of the word.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
And I suppose that you are under the mistaken impression that the business does not pay to have that dumpster emptied?
Try not paying your garbage collection bills, see how quickly your old PC stays right where you left it.
First, please note the phrase that I used in my comment "many businesses just throw their computers into the standard garbage, thus avoiding any special waste disposal fees and putting the burden on everyone as opposed to specifically paying the cost themselves".
In many states (maybe all, I have no idea), you are not allowed to dispose of certain items (tires, car batteries, computer monitors) in the regular trash. If you throw them in your regular trash, you are circumventing the extra fees you are _supposed_ to pay to have those specialty items disposed of.
For example, I pay a nominal fee to have my garbage hauled off. But if I want to throw away certain items, I have to call a number and arrange for a pick up. They come and pick up the items and that month, I get charged extra for the special item disposal. Of course, many people just put these special items in regular garbage bags and avoid the extra fee.
The people that do this are thus placing the burden on everyone, since they are avoiding the extra cost that their trash incurs. If nothing else, they are making the cost of running the specialty item pickup service be more expensive for those who follow the rules.
Even if you were correct, why would this only apply to computers? Why not ALL garbage?
I never said it shouldn't apply to all garbage. At least, all garbage that can't simply be placed in a landfill.
If hazardous material is improperly disposed of and ends up in a landfill, then the government goes in and declares that landfill a Superfund site, whose money do you think pays for that?
Sure, one monitor won't make a landfill hazardous, but if enough people are improperly disposing of hazardous materials, it will add up. Ever looked at the list of Superfund sites? There are a pretty good amount of landfills on there. And again, who pays to clean those sites? You, me and everyone else, that's who.
All goods should pay for their disposal UP FRONT. Like PC disposal charges, this would internalize the disposal cost. Why is the state (when in the US it does so little of real value) required to offer disposal services? Why not require manufacturers/purchasers pay the cost directly?
Something like that would go ALONG way in curbing consumer culture - can you imagine, actually being RESPONSIBLE (to a degree) for the whole environmental cost of consumerism?
if we could only internalize the environmental cost of manufacture of items into their costs... that would be great... oh, and the cost to REHABILITATE the planet because of all the needless pollution... terrific.
At least PCs serve a useful purpose before they're scrapped, helping to conserve other resources. AOL disks are shameless pollution from the get-go.
Why not indeed? Why is it that PC cases have gone from PC to AT to ATX and beyond? The old forms worked and still work. I've got a AMD k6/2 450 running happily in an XT case with a 150 watt power supply. Worse, why is it that the cases have been tossed out with the guts even when there has been no change in form factor? Even worse than that, why is it that perfectly useful components get thrown away because of software "upgrades"? Hmmmm. Might it be because certian companies are discouraging modularization and reuse of their components, the Winmodem being the most glaring example? How about printers and scanners that also take "drivers" despite having enought computing power to have common interfaces like HP's printer command language, post script, or SCSI? Answer these questions and you will know why we have more dead PCs than living people.
Now, the next question is if PC waste is significanly greater and more damaging than other consumer electronic wastes. Are PCs worse than credenza stereos, TVs, and all the other junk thrown out combined? How is my old 9600 baud modem any worse than my old jam box? What problem will recycling fees really solve?
Put the two questions together and you might see the purpose of this as limitation of entry to PC manufacturing. Dell was started in a dorm room, you don't think they want any new entrants do you?
Combine this with media consolidation, increased government censorship and information monitoring, and you might think a confluence of interests lies in limiting the number of PC makers so that DRM like Paladium can be implimented. Can't have indepenent makers around offering "insecure" computers can we? And so it was uttered in private, and so it was done against the public good, without public input, and certianly not reseombling anything really American. A governement for the people, by the people and of the people? Nah, HP did it, that must be good enough for you and me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You can buy PC's only from government monopolies...
Hey wait a sec! Won't shifting the burden to PC makers weed out the small fries, and even many medium sized companies? Leaving only the large companies that already have the infrastructure in place for such a program? Dang. No wonder HP is backing the bill. Why fight clones if you can get the government to do it in of the name of the enviroment?
I think most if not all mega corporation would build PC's out of ivory and dolphin skin if the materials where cheap enough and public opinion didn't hurt sales.
~Z
does anyone find it strange that the *mercury* news is carrying articles about disposing objects that contain... mercury?
Note that this IS a tax and it DOES affect poor more than the rich
Oh, come off it.
The REAL poor can't afford computers--and they're likelier to purchase bottom-shelf five-times-used PCs and keep them forever, while it's the well-off that "upgrade" by replacing the entire machine.
You might as well say that cigarette taxes effect the poor more than the rich--when they really target SMOKERS, and not the rich or the poor.
And oddly enough, the reason air and water are cleaner today than they were 20 years ago is because of environmental regulations from the EPA and state agencies.
Tips and Tricks for Mozilla
Has anyone considered what will happen in the next few years as the FCC mandates all TV broadcasting in the major markets be in digital format? Has California considered how it will deal with a glut of old analog TV sets headed for the trash dump? I suppose they could be sold on EBay to the rest of the country until the digital mandate becomes 100%. Ironically, when we stimulate the economy with products consumers want to buy, like computers in the recent decade, we also stimulate trash. So maybe our disposal rates will be a lagged measure of our economy.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
In what other industry is the manufacturer responsible for disposal of the things it makes???
Cars?? No... tires?? no... car batteries?? no... I can't think of a single one, and all of the above there have hazardous materials in them... why is the pc industry being made to do this??? Obviously its just a push by hp to get all of the small computer makers out of the market, because hp/dell can handle having to pay a charge to recycle computers, hell they could open their own recycling plants, but all the little white box makers will be forced out of business because we don't have the capital or cash flow to handle this type of overhead.
Don't like socialism? Then pay for your own damn messes by paying what the product actually costs to make (and dispose of).
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Where are you getting this from? The EU stated that DSD (owner of the green dot program) has too large an advantage due to its large market share - a monopoly type problem, not "abusive" or "wasteful". Sure, the link says that the practice is overly bureaucratic, but that's not the same as wasteful - in fact, it's reducing solid waste.
And your comment about the "old world" is the wrongheaded. If anything, the USA represents the "old world" way of doing things. The EU is years ahead of North America in terms of environmental programs. (I say this as a Canadian, just as guilty as any American - I'm not trying to start a nationality flamewar here.) The idea that all things European are "old world" is just inflammatory.
- David
Who will recycle ours? The Computer Show people?
It would make unsustainable consumption prohibitive - that's the idea! While you might think it's a great idea to sacrifice our only habitat for short term finanacial gain, the people who'd like to leave something for future humans disagree.
True cost pricing, Green taxes.
Yeah. When my TNT2 video card's fan began making a really annoying noise, I replaced it, instead of upgrading the video card. It was much cheaper, and I didn't need more 3D power anyway.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Throw away?
HP will send you upon reqest, some postage-paid mailers to return your used ink cartridges for recycling.
Just click here.
I wasn't joking. HP is an environmentally friendly, socially responsible company, and you should buy stuff from us for that reason. Well that and we make good stuff.
And as for cheap, well have you tried buying a new ink cartridge lately? Ouch! (But it is better quality than the refills.)
It's a matter of scale. Big companies can absorb the costs of regulations better than small ones can. Extreem examples of this are aircraft, automobile and motorcycle manufacture. Regulation is the prime reason the US has three automakers, poor civilian aviation and one motorcycle maker. While there are some advantages to scale and size in those industries, can you tell me why there's only one US manufacturer of motorbikes? PCs don't pose the threat to health and public safety the way motorized transportation does and this spurious "waste" issue is the only thing HP etc can fix on to get rid of small PC makers.
Now because I have posed some real harm this can do, I throw the burden of proff onto you and those who would change things. Show me studies where electronic goods have managed polute groundwater. Heck, I'd be satisfied if you could simply point to widespread evidence of sanitary landfill failure in general. If what I say is true, and small PC makers get squashed, I'm sure that I'll pay more for my next PC when I can't find the next upstart Dell dude in his dorm room. I don't want to trade that for some kind of silly PC only law that fails to stop any real harm by blocking all the larger stream of poison to the landfill from all other consumer electronic devices. In other words prove it's a problem and prove that proposed fees will fix the problem. If you can't I'm not going for it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Wouldn't be more fair to require EVERY manufacturer or importer to set aside enough money to cover the projected disposal costs? Then our landfills would be free, and fewer people would dump their garbage in the woods...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
The main reason you need bottled water is the MTBE being added to gasoline. Unless you live in one of the few chip manufacturing areas, you're uninvolved.
-- Terry
Okay, let me start out by saying that I am a bleeding-heart environmentalist (and someone who has owned dozens of computers). This is great news, and I'm very glad to hear that someone with so much weight to throw around is behind it.
However! Let's think about why this is in HP's stockholders' best interest. Is it possible that HP likes this plan because it will increase someone's cost of doing business? Big guys like HP can surely handle the price tag for this greenwashing, but if you're a small-time Mom & Pop computer store, this could be very bad news.
Anybody have any other guesses at HP's motivation?
If you've read the article or watched the news, you'll know that they are talking about collecting the fee up front.
That way, when it comes time to recycle the Compaq Persario's, you spin off the Presario division into a seperate company, and then it can declare bankruptcy, leaving the consumer holding the bag, as they already are today.
The only way I'd trust something like this is if the money went into an escrow account. Even then, you're not assured ("Gee, we underestimated the disposal costs...").
It's simply not going to work, unless you pay up front, and the people you pay are *guaranteed* to still be around when you go to get rid of the machine, and they are *required* to take it, without charging you more money.
Not going to happen. It's just another boondoggle.
-- Terry
My uncle favored legislation like this for his paint manufacturing company. Requiring the sellers of paint to take the unused paint back makes it uneconomic for a business like Sears who's main business is not paint.
Manufacturers which actually produce their own product have an advantage in disposal. They have more of an ability to reuse/recycle the product than middlemen for whom the business is a sideline. Office Depot doesn't want to take up twice their warehouse space with used computers, but CompUSA or Bob's Computer Garage might be able to do something useful with them.
So it's no wonder that HP wants this to pass. Someone realized that they can actually *profit* from this. My guess is the swift change in HP's position was a result of some people being uninformed after the Compaq merger.
IMHO, more companies need to learn how to deal with their own waste rather than shipping it to Asia on a barge. HP is just ahead of the game.
Or, more likely, it would create a secondary market for recycling, and all of the small guys could buy the service from one of a few large recyclers. Chances are that the large manufacturers would do this too as it would likely be inefficient for each computer maker to get in to the secondary business of recycling.
Thus, the advantages and disadvantages of being large would probably stay about the same.
Correct! Do nothing. Ignore the costs that pollution have in the economy (eventually somebody has to clean the mess) and lets ignore the alarmist zealots that dare to suggest that dumping chemicals and plastics in landfills may not be such a brilliant idea.What a bunch of idiots...
You seem too worried about consumer rights but very unconcerned about consumer moral obligations (that in some instances should be reflected in enforceable laws).
And you also forget that consumers are also tax payers. Your pitiful attempt at creating sympathy for poor consumers blissfully ignores that they will have to foot the bill of the Mother of all Cleanups. How charming of you.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
One of them should be to help clean out the mess your commercial activity creates, if you enter a market in which big businesses are already established then you are in trouble, if you enter a niche market then you will be OK, what we can't do is continue ignoring the costs of our habits.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... but I will respond to you, AC.
I am a fscking rabid capitalist, lover of personal property.
Get that in your anonymous cowardly brain.
But property does not exist in a vacuum, and whatever Maggie Thatcher told you, there is such a thing as society. Do not believe me? He, give me your address, I need somewhere to dump my rubish.
Property without assuming responsibility for that property is a nice construct of people like you (i.e. Anonymous Cowards) that has no place in the lifes of real people.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
True. But re-read my post. I was commenting on the Democratically imposed 5-cent "tax" on bottles, not the computer disposal fee. The 5-cent bottle tax affects poor people more than rich people because it makes up a larger percentage of their income.
You might as well say that cigarette taxes effect the poor more than the rich--when they really target SMOKERS, and not the rich or the poor.
Yes, but assuming that rich and poor smoke in equal percentages, it affects the poor more than the rich because, again, a tax that doubles the price of cigarettes is going to represent a larger percentage of the poor person's available income. This is especially true with products such as cigarettes that, due to being addictive, can pretty much be taxed at almost any level--and both rich and poor will find the money to supply their addiction--but it hurts the poor more because they have less disposal income to "absorb" the tax. We're talking Econ-101 here...
But first step: Re-read the original thread and my original post so you understand I was commenting on the bottle tax, not computer disposal tax.
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