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Whose Burden is it to Recycle Computers?
bostons asks: "California places the financial burden of dealing with the electronic waste on consumers, charging a $6 to $10 disposal fee on every computer and television purchased. Maine puts the onus on manufacturers, demanding they pay the full cost of recycling their computers or televisions and pick up a share of the recycling tab for products of unknown origin. Starting next year, Maryland will require manufacturers to offer free computer take-back programs or pay the state a fee. Which do you think is the most effective and appropriate option?"
Sorry I didn't RTFA, but $6 to $10 isn't a lot to include in the total price, so this recycling-tax should be prepaid before it gets out of the shop. I think it'll be more difficult to enforce payment during the disposal.
This extra cost is likely to go unnoticed because a single CPU/RAM/HDD price drop can easily cover that amount.
One common problem with prepaid tax (like petrol) is they took the money, used it on something else, and turned around to say they don't have enough money for roading/accident management.
Hence it's important for the authority to not only impose the tax, but also acknowledge it, so that consumers can simply put the computer/TV out on the street for collection and the authority must fulfill its duty to dispose them appropriately.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I personally pay the "old pit by the highway" to take care of my old computers...one good chuck and the disposal is all paid up :)
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
... You mean we can't just keep stacking them up in a corner somewhere?
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
charging a $6 to $10 disposal fee on every computer and television purchased. Maine puts the onus on manufacturers, demanding they pay the full cost of recycling
which they swiftly pass onto consumers. Net result: consumers always pay for recycling (which incidentally sounds rather normal).
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You can do that? I thought you had to make routers, firewalls and mp3 servers out of them.
Ha! Joke's on them! Most of my computers were fished from dumpsters.
Unknown host pong.
I don't think anyone on slashdot has ever thrown a computer away..
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Every consumer electronics item should be sold with a deposit that is a percentage of its value. That way, consumers have to recycle the product at the end of its lifetime to get their money back, just like with aluminum cans.
Currently there are armies of homeless people who roam around the cities and countryside picking up cans to claim the deposits. However the problem is they only pick up the empty cans and leave the other trash on the ground until it washes into the lakes, rivers, and oceans after the next rain storm or gets eaten by animals or little kids. Imagine if every recyclable had a bounty of a few cents. Then armies of homeless people would scour the countryside cleaning it until it sparkled instead of sitting around and telling hobo stories while giving eachother sponge baths.
I don't think it really matters who pays the bill as the consumer will end up paying for it one way or another. Even if you charge the manufacturers or retailers, they will in turn pass this cost on to end customer.
If you make the consumers pay for it you're much more likely to end up with computers dumped in random places, so as to not pay the fee for recycling it. Why is it that when you recycle anything else they pay you?
(In Soviet Russia, computer recycles you.)
-scott
I think they should make the consumers pay a $1-$10 refundable deposit on all recyclable computer equipment. Make the dollar figure adjust depending on the type of hardware, maybe $1 for a keyboard, but $10 for a CRT. Have return/refund stations at any place that sells the stuff, and give out refunds, just like we do with bottles and cans in some states.
That way, when I load up my truck with my old junky used equipment and dump it on the side of the road somewhere, bums can load it into shopping carts and make some money. I don't have to clean up my mess, and can dump my PC-related trash anywhere, bums make some extra cash, and the streets remain clean and uncluttered of unsightly PC litter!
Everybody wins!
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Which do you think is the most effective and appropriate option?
Throwing them out. Seriously. Nobody should recycle them unless the consumer feels like they should. And if they feel that way, they can pay. That's right, I said it.
I think the most effective option would probably be what a lot of communities and/or cities are already doing with conventional recycling. These towns have set up city-wide recycling programs that are "free" (that is, tax-funded) to residents and mandatory. These programs are effective because they're easily available and don't cost anything beyond what the consumer has to pay in taxes anyway. Such a system for tech junk would help avoid the finger-pointing of asking "who's fault is it" and instead provide a community-wide means for recycling.
1. take-back program
2. re-sell to 3rd world countries
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5. Profit!
I don't care who pays for it as long as I don't have to do anything. As long as I can call for special pickup and dump it on the curb like anything else then it could cost me $50 more for my state tax for all I care.
But if I have to do anything different from what I would with normal odd-sized trash then I'd just throw it in the dump when they aren't looking and then everybody loses.
It's always the burden of the individual ... doesn't matter if we know about it or not. You can't have a whole without the parts !!
Consumers should pay for recycling / disposal, why should computers or tv's be different from any other piece of trash? Once you purchase the equipment, you are responsible for it.
Whose Burden is it to keep the computers in a landfill?
If the computers are not recycled, they will most likely end up on the side of the road or in a landfill. Considering that there are materials in the computers which are toxic, this means that the toxins will eventually leak out into the surrounding environment.
So before we ditch recycling, the following questions should be asked: Whose Burden is it to keep the computers in a landfill? Whose Burden is it clean up the toxins? Who's burden is it to pay for the detrimental health and environmental effects from when the toxins leak into the surrounding environment?
Recycling computers is also not a clean process, and also produces toxic byproducts. So really, we need to ask the same questions for recyling also.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
On recycling companies.
Deleted
If you buy a computer from Dell, they send you a DHL shipping label for recycling your old computer. It's free for the customer and you can just use the box that your new machine came in. It would be great if more companies could offer this kind of service.
So it's sort of a moot point. The money may travel a circuitous route, but if you force manufacturers to cover the cost of recycling, it will filter into consumer cost one way or another.
Doesn't everyone just sell their old computers for ten or twenty bucks on eBay? People actually throw these things away?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
If you tax manufacturers to pay the recycling bill, the cost increases will just be passed on to the consumers, either directly or indirectly.
Adding a surcharge on buying electronics is perfectly reasonable. After all, it's not like those "EVIL MANUFACTURERS" are alone responsible for creating this awful toxic waste that has to be recycled. If nobody were to buy the items, the manufacturer wouldn't manufacture them. The manufacturer only manufactures to satisfy a need in the market.
Knowing state governors, they will probably charge us at POS, then go ahead and bill manufacturers, who will in turn put the tab on our bills.
Oh i can forsee it something like this:
- Cost of iBook 14" 512 MB RAM: $1456.00.
- State cess towards hazard disposal: $10.00
- Manufacturer charges for waste disposal: $10.00
- County charges: $6.00
We will end up paying $26.00 for a $10 charge because the stupid state billed US and the manufacturer for the same.Manufacturers obviously will NOT abosord the charge. they will load it onto the cost.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I think we should just make a giant trash ball, and shoot it off into space. It probably won't come back for thousands of years, at which point it will no longer be *our* problem.
Primarily the burden on the manufacturer should be to use components that are easy to recycle. If more than 30% of the product is not recycable, give the manufacturer a penalty. The burden on the consumer should be that he pays for the removal and destruction up-front, that way there is no incentive to leave it at the side of the road or dispose of it in other non-ecological ways.
1. For new computers:
- require a state registration fee at purchase time.
- require a renewal ever 3 years or have the user return the computer. Make it either/or with no exception. Cough up the computer or pay for life.
That would turn it into a "drivers license" to compute.
2. For existing computers:
- Use the military to conduct a house to house search and slap registration stickers on every computer they found.
Um, did you also want a *practical* method?
- If the buyer/consumer is legally required "properly dispose" of a the computer, then the consumer pays directly.
- If the seller (computer maker/dealer) is required to do it, then the consumer will still pay for it in the form of a higher price on the computer
- If the government offers "free" disposal then the taxpayer (= the consumer) pays for it. (Admittedly it may be non-computer-using taxpayers that shoulder some of the burden)
- If we let old computers be dumped and create toxic waste then some future consumer will bear the burden for either disease or cleanup. (Again, it may be non-computer-using taxpayers that shoulder some of the burden)
Business and government never "pay" for anything, they only provide convenient (and sometimes efficient) mechanisms for collecting costs from consumers/taxpayers to achieve some collective goal.Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Consumers always pay for recycling in the end.
But in cases like this the person most able to handle the problem should be the one required to do something about it. Manufacturers generate the waste, design the components, have distribution networks in place. It only makes sense that they should be in charge of recycling.
I only hope they embrace this as a potentially profitable enterprise and not treat it as heavy metal miners have done in the USA. They are required to cleanup mining operations after they are finished but most spend / embezzel the cleanup money and declare bankruptcy. Then a multi million dollar disaster is left with nobody accountable.
I don't think Company X would declare bankruptcy to get out of recycling electronics, but I think they might use other means to circumvent the requirement. Corporations seem to be good at that.
Can't we just send all our shit to some third world country? Hell, it is where we stole most of the natural resources anyways. Maybe if they burry it in the ground, in another 50,000 years they will have coal we can go back for.
Seriously. Why can't we use some third world nation as our garbage dump? I know I will get flamed for this. But those people don't have nothing anyways. Land in the USA is expensive, it costs too much to throw stuff away.
Look at Cuba for example. There is a country that is dirt poor and has sanctions against it. Yet the Cuban people are experts at keeping old cars running.
Maybe if we have an agreement with some African nation to take our computer garbage, they can make 1 working system for every 10 we throw out. They could set up their own buisness oppertunities, maybe open up a call center. Why should India get all the contracts?
Then a few years later, they can string together 100,000 computers to form a super computer.
I know this will get modded as troll, but we don't want it and they don't have it. It seems like a solution. All we need to do is figure a way to get it over there. Anyone know where Tina Yothers is?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
The private disposal firms charge an arm and a leg, $25 for monitor and $15 for sealed lead-acid UPS batteries which is more than they cost new.
..but it will always be the consumer that pays. You don't think manufacturers will just let any government levy come out of their profit margins, do you?
Besides, it's not hard (at least in California) to find places that will recycle your computer for free. It doesn't necessarily cost you anything at all.
And the brethren went away edified.
Fee should be on manufacturer...they will pass this on to consumers, but they will then have an incentive to reduce nonrecyclable components and thereby keep some of the fee for themselves
It is unfair to charge a person a disposal fee at the time of purchase, because it is entirely possible that the person will handle disposal himself at some later point. Rather, a disposal fee at the landfill gate will target those buyers who chose to dispose of a computer in that way. Recycling companies may do likewise (and perhaps compete with landfills.) Lastly, the consumer may simply choose to keep the old hardware in his basement, or bury it on his own land.
(Why yes, I do have a stack of old tires at home, I find them useful for gardening, storage, and impromptu playground equipment.)
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
...MP5 semi-automatic machine guns...
Aren't mp5's SUBmachine guns?
Here's the wiki:
A submachine gun is a firearm which combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the ammunition of a pistol, and is usually between the two in weight and size.
If the journalist could not give reliable information about a part of his article from an interview with a secret service agent (and details readily available on the net), who's to say he's actually giving reliable information about a clandestine operation against a shadowy group operating in the digital underground?
First it was CRT's, and now I got notice for LCD and plasma screens... soon it will be boards and Chips. Does anyone want to pay an extra $10 for a NIC??
It's You and I against the World... When do we attack?
According to basic economic theory, no matter who the tax is levied on, the end result will be the same, depending on the elasticity of demand. If demand is highly elastic, then the manufacturer ends up bearing the burdern of the tax, and if demand is flat, then the consumer ends up bearing the burden, with a whole spectrum in between.
I work on a university campus in the housing area. I leave my old computers by the elevator, on the sidewalk, or give them to the relatives. I also sell them on websites for a free or low cost. ($10.)
As a Democrat, I think it falls, like everything else, on the Government. That way, as a Democrat, I don't have to think for myself, and let others do it for me.
it's all going to wind up in a fucking landfill anyway
What happens if I, as the consumer, just dump my old monitor or CPU into the dumpster? The tax was paid, but the money was never spent and the computer is right where it shouldn't be.
The problem right now is that there's no incentive, other than my conscience, to recycle now. Even if it was free, it still doesn't make people want to get off their butts and do the right thing.
Taxing items when they are sold is worthless because people buy a lot of this stuff on the Internet where tax collection is going to be iffy at best. So the best approach is to just build it into sanitation fees and add into this a bounty for recycling computers.
If I was going to get a few bucks for doing it, it might be worth my while. More to the point, it'll be much more worth the while of scrap collectors if they see my old burned out monitor in the alley.
I mean, realistically, who's going to pay to dispose of an item if it's easier and cheaper to just dispose of it incorrectly? So in essence, you'd be taxing the environmentally responsible.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
It may not solve the disposal problem, but services such as FreeCycle helps old, but usable, items find new homes. The longer people can use an item, the fewer items per year that need to be disposed.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Presumably, the goal is to keep toxic materials out of landfills (so those materials won't leach into groundwater). Charging the manufacturer or retailer won't stop the consumer from tossing old electronic equipment. For that matter, neither will charging the consumer.
Unless...what if it was more of a deposit system? Have the consumer pay an extra $20 up front when they buy a computer, but give them an incentive (maybe $15?) to return the computer so its components can be disposed of or recycled properly.
Irregardless of who gets the initial fee, it will eventually trickle down to the consumer.
which they swiftly pass onto consumers. Net result: consumers always pay for recycling (which incidentally sounds rather normal). This seems fair enough. Why should the taxpayers pay to dispose of my luxury item? If nobody pays the fee, then my old computer becomes a public burden.
It doesn't really matter who they charge. If they charge the manufacturer, the manufacturer will just pass along the cost to the consumer anyway. Then, they avoid having every store in the state collecting and remitting extra fees. Charging the manufacturer directly is the more efficient option.
Why, these folks!
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
The ideal situation would be to place the burden on the market in such that there is an incentive to reduce costs.
Therefore, if manufacturers have the burden, they will have to charge customers indirectly by increasing purchase price (after all, customers pay for everything in the end).
And if manufacturers carry the direct burden, they will also have the desire to lower disposal costs. Instead of a flat $6 for disposal costs, the manufacturer will want to lower it as close to zero as possible.
This becomes a win-win. It costs the consumer in the end (as it always does), but manufacturers have a strong incentive to minimize the disposal costs.
At the end of the day, I'll speculate that this could be a profit center for the manufacturer - the resale of whole components and quality recycled raw materials could wind up making them money.
I'm in favor of placing a disposal tax on anything which needs disposal. The tax collected could be paid to folks who cleanly dispose of things (including recycling them). This would improve the economics of recycling, help reduce landfill, and provide a financial disincentive against excessive packaging.
And while we're at it, gasoline tax should pay for, say, 75% of the Defense budget.
burn them and dump them in the river
It is not fair. One guy must work for 60 minutes and the other for 7, to have their trash taken away.
The anwser is to have a luxery tax based on income. Those in the bottom half would pay nothing. Those in the top 50% would pay some fee, and those in the top 25% would pay an additional fee.
We can work this program into the national ID system. It will have all the persons data, their fingerprints, social security number, DNA information, so why not income? When someone goes to buy something, tax can be determined then.
And I don't think we can cheat the system. Most poor people won't screw themeselves helping the rich. And if someone in the lower tax brachet tries to buy a large priced item, it will raise red flags.
Holy crap, time for me to write another letter to Ted Kennedy. I think I finally solved all our problems.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Biodegradable Comptuers.
I saw something about a company in the San Jose area that is getting the gold out of computers and its apparently cheaper than if they were mining it.
Apologies that I don't more details on this.
So, I'd say they can take it free of charge, if they can make money off the reclaimed elements.
replace #2 with... resell on ebay with no DOA protection
As long as I can call for special pickup and dump it on the curb like anything else then it could cost me $50 more for my state tax for all I care.
Why does everyone immediately try to use taxes? If they are already making some sort of individual contact with you (by coming to pick up the thing), you may as well pay them directly per-item. Even if it's state-mandated that you must get your old tech properly disposed of, user fees are perfectly suited to this type of problem. That way people would take the true cost of tech into account when deciding what to buy.
We techies should be responsible enough to shoulder the costs ourselves, instead of forcing everyone in the state to pay for disposal of technology that they might not use.
Why not put the funds toward a refurbish center that will evaluate which hardware is still functional and give it away to people who may use it to better their life (a 300mhz machine can still connect to the internet and do simple tasks such as eMail, Web and IM).
Any left-over junk should be gotten rid of in an orderly fashion as best fit current disposal technology.
Zoom Player Lead Dev.
But anyway, there were no fees for computer disposal on the bill. We didn't get any literature about "end of life of your laptop" or anything like that. And the price of it included no hidden fees that I couldn't explain away. If they are putting the burden on manufacturers, they aren't living up to it.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
1) The consumer pays when disposing. Pretty unfair because a bunch of computers can simply be thrown in the trash by those not wanting to recycle. Well, life's not fair but it's the starting point in the article.
2) The manufacturer plus consumer. If the burden shifts to the manufacturer then the recycling cost will inevitably be added to the initial price tag. So every purchaser pays up front whether the fee is buried in the purchase price or listed as a separate disposal fee. A little better. Home builders like myself would seem to be excluded. Not to mention that some type of fund would need to be set up for such a thing.
However, the real key to getting something like this to work is by marketing. Play up the fact that your computer is "green" and appeal to soccer moms to buy brand X for Christmas morning. Maybe throw in a little lower power consumption and stripped down packaging to boot. It could certainly be made to work to the manufacturer's advantage financially. That's the "3) Profit!" aspect.
Btw, Honda advertises that the Pilot is 90% recyclable...it actually was a factor in my decision to by it.
The action should reflect the purpose as directly as possible.
That said, I am reminded of the fact that, in Texas at least, places like JiffyLube and any place that changes oil are required to accept old motor oil for proper disposal at no charge. This is a burden on these oil changing places but the purpose is to benefit the evironment, not to "tax" people. This approach is definitely not a tax and has the least amount of bureaucratic overhead. (The benefit to the oil-changing people is that because the outsiders still need to dispose of their used oil properly or face heavy fines if they are caught which means it is less convenient to change their own oil and since they need to make the trip to the lube shop anyway, they just might get more business in the process.)
With that as my own mental image of what an appropriate solution might be, a mandatory "take-back" program is the only way I think is appropriate. Then the sellers can do whatever they [legally] need to do in order to dispose of them properly. This would accomplish the main purpose, which is to decrease the amount of this waste in landfills. Taxing is not appropriate in this case.
what's it matter if the land fills get poisoned, it's not like they're sanitary as it is...
int main(){ char ln[0]; ln[15]=(ln[14]=(ln[13]=(ln[12]=(ln[11]=(ln[10]=((l n[0]=((ln[1]=((ln[2]=((ln[3]=(((ln[4]=(((ln[5]=((l n[6]=ln[9]=(ln[8]=(ln[7]=83)^125)-14)+89))&244)+2) )&229)+)-5))&253))|96)+249)-22))^49)^27)^26)^27)^1 ;
printf(ln);
}
int main(){ char ln[0]; ln[15]=(ln[14]=(ln[13]=(ln[12]=(ln[11]=(ln[10]=((l n[0]=((ln[1]=((ln[2]=((l
What I fear is that this "fee" is really going to be tossed into the general fund, and no useful recycling program will be created. Then it's just a one-time TV purchase tax.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
I think it should technically go on the company. I believe that this is how current car companies in Europe are required to handle things. The companies are required to take back cars when they are done. Yes, either way, the consumer ends up paying for it in the end, but eventually companies will start designing computers knowing that they will have to recycle it eventually. I think it ends up being a more environmentally friendly solution, and won't end up changing costs drastically at all either way (unless further down the line, companies start re-using their own parts).
My local recycling center (taxpayer funded) charge only $10 for a monitor and $8 for a computer.
If it were more common then the price would come down.
This sounds like the Bush plan for ending welfare. You don't plan on having Halliburton manage this, by any chance?
In either case, the consumers pay. Computers that are sold in Maryland will mean additional costs for those manufacturers, and they will simply pass that cost along to the buyer. Of course, since they can't simply raise the cost on boxes sold in Maryland (well, they could, but that would simply drive more people away from retail stores and to online sales), they'll slightly raise the costs on all the boxes they sell, resulting in all consumers paying additional money to make the Maryland government happy.
California, on the other hand, raises the cost to the specific end user. You want to buy 5 computers, you pay the same amount, but you're stuck with the cleanup fees. This doesn't impact anyone other than you.
This is a very rare case of California making a decision that's saner than other states in the nation.
What's up with no comment being visible on the page? (probably because of lack of moderation)
If a state tries to get the consumer to pay for disposal at the end of the computer's life, he's quite likely to toss it in the ditch, which is worse than tossing it directly into the dump.
If a state tries to get the manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer to pay for disposal at first sale or import into the state, you run into the same collection problems that sales taxes have: how are you going to collect for the computer that somebody buys across the state line and drives home with? How are you going to collect for the computer which is mail-ordered from some business with no presence in your state?
Neither system is going to work very well, but you'll see less electronic trash in the ditch with the second.
If we're talking about a federal effort, then we can decree that all importers and manufacturers shall pay the fee upon manufacture or import, and have a reasonable expectation of catching the vast majority of the devices.
One big advantage to having such a program would be that the manufacturers would have a strong incentive to reduce the number of their machines being disposed of. We might begin to see significantly more upgradability, and less planned obsolescence. The manufacturers would have some incentive to encourage reuse, too. Leaving aside the environmental impact, those would be a great things.
See what I've been reading.
Charge companies at the point of manufacture for the disposal fee something like $25. If the computer then gets recycled, the manufacturer gets back $10 and the consumer gets $10. The remaining $5 goes towards the cost to recycle it. If possible, there shouldn't be a cost as they would hopefully be able to make money from refusbishing some of the old computers and use that to subsidize the ones which are total junk.
So yeah, prices will go up but at the very least it's an incentive for manufacturers to inform consumers about the programs and actively encourage them to take part -- they want their $10 back, after all! And consumers have an incentive as well. Or, if people are too lazy companies can form to take the burden of recycling off the consumer. If you can go to someone's house, pick up a computer, and make $10 from it... there might be enough money for someone to do this full-time.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Where I live, you get charged a disposal fee if you buy a tire. If they don't actually dispose of an old tire, too bad, they're required by law to charge you anyway. Then if *YOU* take that tire in to be recycled, then you get charged a recycling fee on top of it. It's similar with other products like batteries.
If it weren't for idiocies like that, then I'd be much more open to these sorts of fees.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
The website http://www.diyparts.org/ which in past supplied 3rd world countries with computers now has an option where you upload the information of a computer you have to give away and someone in your area viewing the website will contact you regarding it for free stuff.
Since it's nearly everyone's burden, it might as well be handled at the governmental level.
Charge a materials fee (to importers, manufacturers OR end users, whichever is easiest) and use the proceeds to finance recycling programs.
Have the recycling programs actually strip chips from the circuit boards, then identify and sell some of these back to manufacturers wherever it makes sense.
For the rest of the stuff, reduce it down to raw materials and either sell or safely dispose of that.
I've got news for you, just like taxes, the full cost gets passed on to consumers no matter what mechanism is in place to collect the fees.
More music, fewer hits
With that in mind, imagine if any given computer company - say, Dell - offered a small to moderate trade-in value on a new PC if you gave them your old one. They would then break down the components and use them to make new PC's, while the consumer would get a discount on a new one. Both sides would benefit.
Then again, as long as companies are stuck on their short-term, quarterly business models, the goal of which is simply to move as many units as possible in as little time as possible, this type of thing will never catch on. Because of this business model, there's ample evidence of market failure, since state governments need to legislate recycling computers.
But, really, what can you expect from corporate America?
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Which do you think is the most effective and appropriate option?
Neither. The only appropriate option is for someone to figure out how to make recycling computers profitable (like some waste oil recyclers, glass recyclers, and aluminum recyclers). Socialism and laws are only going to create more crime, and not less mess
BBH
You're all talking as if recycling stuff is a burden rather than an opportunity.
For a start, pull scales better than push so instead of making people recycle what you want are people going around scavenging old kit to use for other stuff. At the moment the economics are such that it isn't worth doing this but what if you made it extremely tax friendly for those who do the scavenging? After all, they are providing a social service by taking this unwanted kit.
Deleted
>
> And rather than make two small piles of garbage. . .
>
> Sing it with me the next time it comes around on the guitar.
This post is called "Natalie's Restaurant", and it's about Natalie, and the Restaurant, but "Natalie's Restaurant" is not the name of the Restaurant, it's the name of the post, and that's why I named this post "Natalie's Restaurant".
Now, it all started about two posts ago, it's on two posts ago when CmdrTaco and I went up to eat some hot grits at Natalie's restaurant...
So we took about half a ton of monitors and stuck 'em in the back of a VW microbus (with RedHat on an old laptop hooked up to a GPS receiver and other implements of destruction) and headed away from the grits shop.
We got back to the University and there was a big sign across the dorm rooms sayin' "Prepaid Recycling Tax Effective As Of Thanksgiving". And we had never heard of payin' $10 for reusing garbage on Thanksgiving before, so with tears in our eyes we drove off lookin' for another place to hand out the free monitors.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the road there was a classroom in a fifteen-foot trailer, and inside the trailer was a little pile of 14" monitors. And we decided that a portable classroom fulla 21" monitors was better than a portable classroom fulla 14" monitors, and rather than see a buncha kids tryin' to work at 640x480 on 14" screens, we decided to give 'em ours.
That's what we did, and drove back to Natalie's to post about it on Slashdot, had a plate o' Thanksgivin' Grits that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning... when we got a phone call... from Officer Obie of the California Computer Recycling Use Fee Commission.
He said "Kid, we found your name on a Post-It Note on the bottom of a 21-inch CRT in a classroom, and the Teachers' Union just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said "Yes Sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie... I put that Post-It note on that CRT."
After speakin' to Obie for about 45 minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and take back the untaxed freebie monitors, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Environmental Officer's Station. So we got in the RedHat VW Microbus with the old laptop, GPS navigation system and other implements of destruction and headed on down towards the Environmental Officer's station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he coulda given us a medal for bein' so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and the second was bawlin' us out and told us never to be seen upgradin' school computers around the vicnity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the environmental officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed.
schools, students, oldfolks anywhere that a rebuilt PC running a free OS can make a difference. I have always wanted to find out how to start a non-profit that would collect up used PCs, old inventory and business castoffs and refurbish them.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Quite a few scrap metal recyclers are getting into the business of recycling computers. They strip out the precious metals and handle the hazmat issues. They are also getting into the business of recovering chips from the computers and reselling the good ones; these companies make more off of reselling the good chips than they do the precious metals!
Or, if you are so inclined and the machine still works, donate it to a school, a boys/girls club, or any one of a number of charitable organizations.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
that the option of telling the government to stay the hell out of private interests is out? Yeah, yeah, environment and such- but just think when they extend this to general recycling of plastic and paper. Who pays- the manufacturer of the milk bottle, the consumer, or the supermarket? What about magazines- the publisher or the buyer?
Can we get a 1 cent discount if we recycle a magazine? 2 cents for a beer bottle?
I know that computers are a bit different because of the caustic bits insides them, but so are several plastics if "disposed of" incorrectly.
Sorry for the rant, I just wish the government would take off 11 months of the year and spend the other month worrying about things that really mattered.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Whether the consumer is being charged directly (a tax) or the manufacturer is charged when the unit is produced, the consumer will pay. No manufacturer in their right mind would swallow that charge without adjusting the price of that unit.
You buy it, you use it therefore your own it. I don't ask dole to take back my use can of peaches or the company who sells charmin to take back used toilet paper rolls. This is silly. If you want to throw out your old computer and it costs 6-10 dollars so what. On the other hand it should be disclosed to you at the time of purchase that when you decide to throw it out you will need to pay a disposal fee. Or do what I do and sell it on ebay before it completely loses its value and make the problem someone elses...
If the state charges the manufacturer, the manufacturer will charge the retailer, and the retailer will charge the consumer. Ergo, the most efficient way to do this is to allow the money to pass through the least number of hands, and charge the consumer directly.
e.g.:
State-> $10 recycling fee
Manufacturer-> $10 recycling fee + $2 recycling facilitation fee
Retailer-> $10 recycling fee + $2 recycling facilitation fee + $1 fee collection cost offset charge
Consumer-> $13 total cost
vs.
State-> $10 recycling fee
Consumer-> $10 recycling fee
Thomas Galvin
The government should step in and create the equivalent of Superfund for electronics. They could outsource the work to such fine organizations as Freegeek and Freegeek Penn, which already recycle computers on a volunteer basis -- and install Linux on them to boot.
And yes this is a serious issue; look at the problem of discarded cell phones in Europe.
The more significant question is "how can we reduce the amount of toxins being released?" Computers contain lead, mercury, etc. We need to reduce the possibility that these materials enter our groundwater and soils. I think a joint venture is needed: Manufacturers are responsible for the trace amounts of lead, mercury, etc. There is nothing the consumer can really do about this.
Consumers, on the other hand, are responsible for disposal after they have purchased the gadget. They should be forced to either pay to recycle or simply reuse the gadget.
The real solution right now is both highly simple and totally unimplementable: put up a "www.monitorexchange.gov" site where anyone who wants a CRT is matched with anyone who needs one.
I am not certain that computers would have gotten into an obsolete-in-eight-months cycle if not for Microsoft's programming for the next generation processor and memory. When Microsoft was pushing for use of the 386 for their system, I was using an 8086 or 286 with superior software.
Microsoft has been and will likely continue to be the primary corporate beneficiary of hardware escalation (OK, the hardware companies haven't been hurt by it). Thus, they should pay the bill.
Nah, I don't really think that. I think the consumer should pay, but through up-front fees that are collected when the machine is purchased. This should be a national policy, not a state-by-state policy.
Whatever the method, consumers end up paying directly, indirectly, or through a degrading environment.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Why in the hell should I have to pay someone just to get rid of the damned thing anyway? That's just totally retarded, especially so when people are willing to pay good money for things like certain laptop parts and stuff. Like the LCD displays for one. When you throw that kind of stuff out in the trash, you're practically throwing money away. Meanwhile, you can relax knowing that it's not you that's tossing that toxic stuff into the landfill. Maybe that's like 'passing the buck' or whatnot, but doing good deeds alone won't put food on the table, either.
I say develope water soluble nontoxic computers. Now if I can just stop spilling drinks on them.
I'd like to see some kind of electronics recycling program set up (possibly at the federal level) that makes it easy for the average person to drop off their unwanted electronic devices.
At the moment, I have a pile of computers lying around that I'd like to get rid off, but I don't want it to end up in a landfill or have their most toxic parts scattered on the ground of a third world country.
I can always donate working hardware to schools in the community, but what about stuff like these $30 dvd players with a 6 month life span? I can't just keep piling this stuff up over the years.
8==8 Bones 8==8
One way or another, the customer is always the one who pays, it is just a question of "how much?" and "when?"
My preference is that the fee be levied as far down the "value chain" as possible - probably at point of sale, like it is for the states with recycle fees on soda containers.
Charging the fee at point of sale does a couple of good things:
1) The customer knows what they are paying for, it isn't hidden away in the total price. This knowledge helps to prevent the fees being raised as an arbitrary form of taxation - income tax gets taken out of most people's paychecks before they ever even see the money, thus obscuring the direct impact of the tax. I wish to avoid that happening with any new taxes.
2) If the fees were directly assesed to the distributor or manufacturer, then they would be inflated with each step in the process just as the price of the system is. In effect, paying the fee at point of sale is like paying the "wholesale" cost but charging the manufacturer the fee would result in it being marked up to "retail" pricing by the time the end-consumer pays for it, possibly even doubling the original "wholesale" fee level for no added benefit to the environment or the consumer.
When I saw "yiff" in the filename I expected furry porn. What a disappointment :(
You know how spams contain links to "Remove your email address" forms, and how they just add you to even more spam lists?
well, I keep those links handy for people that I dislike. and people like you I guess. Enjoy.
Maine puts the onus on manufacturers
Just in case anyone's socialist tendencies kick in and think that Maine really is making the manufacturers pay, guess what: The end consumers are paying this in the form of higher prices from those manufacturers. And I bet that New Hampshire stores near the Maine border were happy to hear this news. Their prices will suddenly be relatively lower.
I'd like to see the public sector do it -- they should offer free computer disposal, and fine people who just toss their machines.
Almost everyone uses computers now, and they're integral to the economy. So even if some people end up subsidizing others, it wouldn't be horribly unjust -- it would be defensible on the same grounds that other kinds of economic supports for business would be.
The advantage of the system I'm proposing is that it would probably get computers out of the landfills. It would work. Most people would drop a machine off if they knew where to go and it didn't cost anything.
This may be off topic, and if so feel free to mod it down, but I figure this is a good place to mention it as any. DIYParts.org is a site dedicated to allowing users to post computers and/or parts at no cost. Likewise it's a place for people to shop for free computer parts. With an exchange like this, we can do our part to help keep the landfills free of parts that really don't need to be there in the first place. It's a good idea for a site really, and I guess for all intents and purposes it's a Craigs List, but more focused/fine-tuned for computer hardware. It may not save the world, but can go a long way to actually pushing out the shelf live of PC parts...
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
I live in Northern California and here, I get charged twice for monitors and TVs - once as a fee when I buy it and again when I try to dispose of it. The local recycling places all charge $12 to accept a monitor, working or not. Right now, I've got 4 monitors and a TV to get rid of but I don't have the $60 to throw them away. I'm all for paying the actual cost of recycling items that I feel I am responcible for but I don't want to be charged twice.
People just leave their old equipment out on the sidewalk. In a matter of hours it is picked apart by the bums/scavengers and you never have to see it again!
I have found working DEC Workstations, and lots of other useful parts that some shmo thoughtlessly threw away. The pickin's were especially nice after the dot bomb.
Does it really matter? Put it on the Consumer = Consumer Pays Put it on the Dealer = Consumer Pays Put it on the Mfger = Consumer Pays
Quote from the organization:
You can find the list for ict equipment here
I found this on the internet!!! It's called cpu4all They take older computers and refurbish them then give them away to people that cannot afford one. http://www.cpu4all.org/
If the manufacturer pays for disposal/recycling, the cost will be off-loaded to the consumer via higher prices.
Either way, you and I will pay the bill.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
The best solution is to make sure that the full cost of the cleanup/recycle is incorporated into the purchase price of the item. I think both these schemes have a chance to do that.
Putting the burden on the manufacturer's could create some healthy competition - companies with more efficient recycle options would be able to offer cheaper and maybe even less toxic products.
OK, so I forgot my AOL friendly link :)
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
... to a charity, non-profit institution. Some of them can't buy electronic stuff (being non-profit and receiving almost nothing from the community), and could surely use your "old" 2000+ Athlon with "only" 256MB of RAM and 80GB HD. Tne government shouldn't have anything to do with this, this is just common sense.
Or, sell it to a stupid cousin for the price of a new one....
Require the manufacturers to handle recycling and make collection service reasonably available to consumers. This way the fee can be built into the price of products, which ensures that manufacturers keep the process efficient to prevent negative impact on the bottom line. It will also ensure that the process doesn't get lost in government bureacracy, which is what I feel prevents a lot of recycling from happening now. I honestly have no clue how the hell to get a computer recycled in my city, but I'm sure that if Dell, Sony, Microsoft, Samsung, etc. all banded together and hired a contractor to get it done, it would happen a lot sooner than it would with the local government in charge.
..as seen on Saturday Night Live...
Old Computer? No problem...just load into the yard-a-pult and set for 100 yards...stand back...release lever..
I don't really see why it makes much difference if we charge the end user for disposal, or make the manufacturers cover it. If the manufacturers have to pay for this, they'll just figure the expense in to the price paid for the machine when it's new ... so in effect, the consumer pays anyway.
The thing I find slightly ironic/interesting is, we have all this concern and hype over PC recycling lately -- yet computers aren't really made of components any more hazardous in landfills than TV sets. And we've been trashing old TVs since what? The 1950's or so?
Also a bit interesting/ironic: By the time all 50 states enact legislation preventing people from just throwing out their old CRT's (lead in the glass you know, and all that!), we'll practically all be using LCD panels as our displays anyway. The vast majority of old CRTs people are ready to toss are 14" and 15" models that have been in service for 5-10 years already and are getting tossed out as we speak....
I've been working in the computer industry for about 14 years now, and to be honest - I don't see loads and loads of computers just getting thrown away after the original buyer is done using them (in say, 3-5 years). Probably 90% of the time, they either get held onto as a "spare" or "machine for the kids", or handed down/sold cheap to someone else to be re-used. By the time one hits the dumpster, it's really been used and re-used as many as 3 or 4 times. Much better lifespans than we're seeing out of cellphones.
Individuals tend to find these laws easy to avoid. Having companies deal with it en masse makes it harder to avoid paying for the disposal, and easier for centralised places to manage it.
My Journal
Forced recycling of anything is a bad idea.
Yes, electronics have some nasty metals/chemicals in them.
However imposing a government fee isn't going to do anything but make things more expensive without solving anything.
Real solutions:
1. Put a heavy enough protective barrier under the land-fill so that the chemicals don't leach into water-supply. Or, sort out the 'bad' items and deal with them in such a mannor as to render them harmless before putting them in land-fill.
2. For those items that can be economically recycled, people have an incentive to do so and will.
For solution #1 basically everyone in that city/county share the additional cost just like they share the benifits of having all those electronic devices.
For solution #2 the end user or landfill operator actually makes money.
I think it is time for the 'forced recycling meme' to fade away.
California actually passes the "burden" onto the seller (I have a California reseller license, so I had to agree to these terms when I got the license), and the sellers have the "option" of passing the cost onto the consumer (more like the responsibility to collect this from the consumer).
But in the end it's the seller that has to pay the State for this cost; whether they collect the fee from their consumers is up to them.
Also, effective July 1, 2005, LCDs and Plasma TVs are included; in the past it was just CRTs.
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
ulimately, the consumer pays the cost - if it is a tax or the manufacturers pay it will be passed on to the consumer as a higher price for the item.
Companies tend to like a tax - they can charge it and blame it on the politicians since it appears seperate from the price of the item;
Politicians tend to prefer a hidden cost so they bear no fallout from the added burden.
What is more effective - well, I tend to think if manufacturers have to pay for disposal and take back equipment they will try to find a way to make it profitable - since they could keep any excess fees collected; governments tend not to be as cost driven and are more likely to spend the money elsewhere and then go back to consumers for more money. Then again, I tend to view free market solutions as more efficient.
Manufacturers can also pressure suppliers to build recyclable components as well; the German requirement for companies to take cradle to grave responsibility for waste is driving research into how to make cars more recyclable, so it's not unreasonable to think similar things would happen with computers. Machines, could for example be built for upgradability - after a year you could pull a CPU / memory module and replace it with a new and faster component, keeping power supplies, drives, etc. While PC's would still become obsolete, you could lessen the waste stream by better design.
Another option is a biodegrable PC - or at least bidegradble components - such as someone has done with a cell phone prototype.
The goal, IMHO, should be to reuse as much as possible to keep from filling dumps with old PC's.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
the onus should be on individual people to pay for recycling, because they want it done (indirectly, through their representatives).
We have quite a few old (non-functioning) inkjets, computers, etc, sitting around here. I know that Office Depot used to have a program where they would accept that kind of equipment for recycling but that program is no longer. What's the right thing to do? I looked around on the net and found some companies that specialize in hauling away equipment but they do it in large quantities, and won't pick up just one or two pieces. What am I supposed to do? I assume dumping it in the trash is not the right thing, but I can't find any other options, other than leaving it in a closet, which is what I'm trying to stop doing. I'm happy to pay $10 or $20 or whatever to get this stuff recycled correctly, but I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars for a hauling company and I also don't want to spend two hours driving around LA to find some place that will accept it for recycling. Surely there is a solution here?
bonfire!!!
In the end, consumers or taxpayers will foot the bill.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If anyone thinks this is more than a tax they're an idiot. This is a revenue-generating scheme.
Stay home from fuckin McDonald's ONCE and there you go, good god.
You people bitch as if you're dirt fucking poor.
You're just a bunch of cheapasses that think six fucking dollars will make or break you.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Whose Burden? NO ONES!. It should be left for enterprising entrepreneurs. We don't pay to have are cars taken away to the junk yard, no we are payed when we take them to the junk yard. Junk yards are a multi-billion dollar industry. I will not pay for a disposal fee!
It becomes more obvious what the correct answer should be if you consider that making the responsibility for the ultimate disposal of the product the responsibility of the manufacturer. Only in this case will the product be designed for the most effective end of life, less waste for the landfill, more recyclable materials. The consumer can't design it in, and often can't accurately judge its environmental impact. The manufacturer can.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
We simply need computers that are going to break down naturally rather than having specially designed recycling programs. It is great that they have them available now, however, we need a bigger solution to the problem if they really care about protecting the environment.
Plus, hey. It'd drive up the economy too.
Average Joe: Uhm, help me. My computer is falling apart. I think it is growing mold too..
Tech Support: No problem! Time for you to get a new computer. Your old one is decaying because it is biodegradable!
In a market where price is determined by supply, a charge on a manufacturer will simply be passed on as a cost to the consumer.
On the other hand, in a market where price is determined by demand, a charge at sale time will be passed on to the manufacturer in terms of lower sales/ a worse price.
There is no difference between making it a tax on the manufacturer v/s a tax on the consumer.
Mmmm.. Donuts
for pension plans! fuck recycling if you can't even retire
.. they did it with panties, didn't they?
I guess that explains why Maine isn't exactly known as a business mecca.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
I dub thee Trolldor, of the land of Troll.
Though thy technique lacks elegance, I see in thy posts the beginning of something GRAND.
Rise a Trollknight and spread thy trolly seed!
The state can appeal to my moral or hit my wallet, but it can't do both at the same time. If I've paid for recycling, moral is out of the equation and I throw the recyclables in the garbage. Whoever got my recycling money can go fish them out of there and do the recycling I paid for. That's the way I deal with beer bottles (10 c a piece) and lemonade tins (30 c a piece) today and that's the way I'd deal with 6-dollar computers too.
California's requirement for $10 for disposal is good and bad. It forces cheapskates to either keep their hardware or donate it to people who aren't fortunate enough, however, there is going to be illegal dumping resulting. People like "free" things. If they can easily dispose of their junk without paying cash out of pocket, then they will jump through hurdles for it. Maine's way sounds the most effective to me. California needs to adopt something like that.
They are in the position of being creative, to design for recycling, and turn it into a return on investment instead of just a cost. The problem of recycling exists mostly because of shortsighted, disposable design. "Disposable" in general should be an outlawed concept in the first-world countries. Almost anything can be made to have a much longer service life, and to be re-usable for other purposes even after its original use becomes irrelevant or inadequate. For example, old desktop computers make fine routers, thin clients, etc. (And on the other hand, you could argue that the excessive electricity they consume and heat that they produce does more damage to the environment than throwing them out and using new low-power chips.) Stuff which is really useless when it becomes obsolete (circuit boards for example) could be designed to be biodegradable or recyclable, but the goal should be re-use as much as possible. Give the manufacturers the incentive, and some of them may find a way.
I've lived in California my whole life, and never heard of this 'disposal fee', and have never been charged for such a thing.
However, I think it would be pointless to have the manufacturers (like dell, alienware, etc) pay for this, seeing as you can simply build your own from components.
I'd rather see a state-run consumer electronics displosal/recycling initiative, in order to seperate electronics from normal food/trash.
I'm amazed that one still is not in place.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Oh, it's so simple:
;-)
Stop worrying about the eco-impact and let me burn it! BURN! BURN!!!
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
. . . the best moves is probably to put *it* in the box, ship it to recycling, and keep using your old computer.
hawk, who wishes a smiley were appropriate
If the state charges the company to recycle their computers, they will just pass the cost along in the cost of buying a new computer. Corporations never really pay these fees; they're always borne by the consumer.
Same goes for corporate income taxes, they're just passed along in the price of the products we buy.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
To fund the consumer fee and any payment to recyclers you put a tax on computers sold in the state. Then, rather than forcing manufacturers to take their computers back (they are good at putting them together, not necessarily taking them apart) put it out to tender and the most efficient recycler will get the job. That way everyone has the right incentives to participate. If the most efficient recycler happens to be a computer manufacturer, so be it. But you don't need to force that.
California places the financial burden of dealing with the electronic waste on consumers, charging a $6 to $10 disposal fee on every computer and television purchased.
I live in California so this one directly affects me...
Quite what service does the state provide with this money?
I know they collect my trash. That's the big black trash can.
I know they collect my cans, glass and paper - that one goes in the big blue trash can.
Where do I dispose of my PC? I have apparently paid $10 for the state to dispose of it. OK. So how exactly do they dispose of it? I certainly don't get given a different trash can. There's no PC trash collection service that comes around.
I would imagine that, for just about every home user that's paid this $10, old PCs that aren't getting reused by relatives etc. end up in the exact same black trash can as all the rest of the trash. It then gets dumped in the exact same landfill as all the other CA waste.
Quite where did the $10 go? I'm yet to see the state do anything different with the disposal of a home PC than they do with all the other trash.
I'm willing to accept they may well have separate recycling that companies with old PCs can take them down to and dump at. The average home consumer has no knowledge whatsoever of such services. So, again, I ask what the state actually provides for that fee? Or is it just a convenient way of raising a little more tax?
This very issue was running through my head yesterday, when my old HP Officejet breathed its last breath. It had a good run, about 8 years of nearly daily use, and I was pretty satisfied with it. The Epson RX620 I picked up to replace it has me a little worried though. The parts in it seem flimsier, and I question whether it will last even half as long.
Anyway, my hope is that if the manafucturers have to pay a disposal fee when their devices are retired, they might put more effort into making them last longer than the 1 year warranty. "They just don't make 'em like they used to" constantly comes to mind when I look at today's consumer electronics. Each generation seems to have less metal, thinner plastic, weaker moving parts, and less overall thought to durability.
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In Oklahoma, we implemented a great, progressive, environmentally responsible "recycling" tax on all new automobile tires. Everybody pays $1 on each new tire. The money goes into a special "trust fund" and is used to reimburse companies that collect, recycle and re-use old tires.
Citizens loved it. Businesses loved it. The government loved it. The "trust fund" collected millions in dollars, created new businesses and jobs, and helped clean up the environment. It was win-win-win.
That is, until one year the regular budget fell short, and our dipshit legislature raided the millions of dollars in the "trust fund" to pay for something worthless, like more social programs or blowjobs for cops or something.
Now, we have some of the largest tire-dumps in the US sitting around waiting to be cleaned-up. The legislature is only paying a "pro-rata" share of the tax proceeds to recyclers, something like half the normal amount. Tire recycling companies are going out of business left and right. And, this is really the best part, the legislature now wants to raise the fucking tax to $2 per tire to bail the program out.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
But I only recycle new computers. Give me your Athlon 64s and high-end video-card rigs that are taking up all that space on your desk.
Stick 'em in the hole that I dump my waste oil into after I maintain the Godzilla-mobile(TM).
If you don't like that, ship 'em to (pick 3rd world country). There's plenty of starving kids over there who could use a good computer.
--- This
The existing system already works fine:
- We buy shit we don't need.
- We throw it away.
- It pollutes the earth.
- The environment becomes inhospitable.
- We run out of natural resources.
- We can't make any more stuff.
- We can't survive the polluted environment.
- We all die out.
- Millions of years elapse.
- We are replaced by something smarter.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
There are two sides here:
- who pays for it?
- how do you encourage it?
If it goes to manufactures, it will end up on my bill anyway. They will fight to reduce these costs? I bet! Will the saving make it back to me? Absolutely not.
The price of music CDs did not decreased, everything enforced on phone companies end in my bill ("conectivity fee", "portability fee" and so on).
The oher side (as someone noted already): why does a computer end in the dumpster? Because it is not easy to get read of it otherwise and there is no incentive to make the effort.
What about this: I pay the cost when I buy. The manufacturer has to pick it up when I call and has to reimburse me the initial recicling price.
And they are not allowed to pass the cost back to me. Why? Because I pay in advance! I pay them a recicling fee 3-5 years (even more) in advance! And they are using my money. And a big percent of ppl will be too lazy to recicle anyway, so the manufacturer gets those money for free.
Whether you charge consumers directly, or charge manufacturers, it is always the consumers who pay. Where do you think manufacturers get their money?
This is the same fallacy you hear when people talk about taxing employers rather than their employees. Nominally, your employer pays part of your social security taxes. But that's nothing but clever misdirection. The tax was taken into account when your salary was set, and if there was no such tax, your salary would be higher.
The same thing applies to sales taxes. When the intermediate stages of a product get taxed multiple times before finally getting sold to a consumer, it is the consumer who foots the bill for all those taxes - the producers can't just swallow the costs and expect to stay in business. That is why in many cases you're truly paying far more in sales tax than the nominal rate. You just don't see it because it's built into the price.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
People buy anything, if you can't find a buyer for broken parts, pretend it works...
I don't preview or spellcheck.
Kidding aside All "Box" Manufacturers should be required to maintain recyclying similar to HP's http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environ ment/recycle/
Turns out its not such a bad deal. Landfill is LOSS. Anything recycled is profit.
Ahh the infamouse step ????? = RECYCLE. Who knew.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
... perhaps, if we can find a low cost method to ship them to countries trying to make a go of advancing into the computer world, like Africa,....
Or maybe some of the computer manufactures at various stages would be interested in contributing to gathering and shipping...
Though it might amount to a bit more than $6-$10 per unit... and monitors....a little more...
No matter what, the burden will always be placed on the consumers. If the manufacturers have to take care of it, they will just up the price of their products to make up for it. So it will always be a tax on the consumers. Wether it be a visible tax or one hidden by higher prices, will be up how you see it.
The computer should recycle itself!
In other news HP announced a new line of self recycling PCs with an integrated FTL drive. While inner workings are still undisclosed, insiders reveal that activating the self destruct mechanism would open a portal transporting the PC to the nearest Black Hole.. talk about convenient!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
The UK's on the verge of decreeing the WEEE directive [knocked on from an ETA of 15/08/05 to 01/06].
It's gonna change some major market dynamics.
And let's face it, the UK is really only a US state.
Find a local school or charity that donates old computers to schools in underdeveloped countries.
My old HS donated many computers to schools in Slovakia, and the CCNA academy kids did an extended field trip to go over and set up the networking equipment for them. Everybody wins.
At my old high school in Louisiana, my teacher had got zero funding and taught computer science (he was more knowledgable and a better instructor than a lot of undergrad professors). He had archaic machines for several years and eventually joined up with a program called CLK (Computers for Louisiana Kids). It was a wonderful system where companies could throw their computers away to this warehouse, and schools like ours would have at least something to work on. It not only gave us computers to program on , but those going in to the service industry could tear apart computers and not really worry too much about destroying anything and could also deal with a huge amount of bizare problems. Thanks to that program I was also able to get in to grid computing at an early age.
That's just how it works, kids. Any increased costs placed upon a manufacturer will just travel to the end user. Unless companies want to see their margins drop.
...I want to know how this fee actually contributes to better recycling of computer parts. I live in California and I recently paid something like an $8 fee on the purchase of an LCD monitor, supposedly to cover recycling costs. Whose costs are these, exactly? As in ... how does it help me recycle my monitor when I want to get rid of it? I think I looked it up once... there is one place that accepts monitors for recycling in San Francisco, and it's actually in South San Francisco (which is a whole different city, literally).
It reminds me a lot of the 2.5 cent deposit we pay on every bottle and can we buy in San Francisco. How do we recycle all those bottles and cans? We have curbside recycling. How does curbside recycling get paid for? Why, we pay for it, of course -- as in, it gets added to our garbage bill. So in other words, we pay 2.5 cents at the register as a deposit toward recycling, then we have to pay each month for the privilege of actually doing the recycling, and yet on top of that we don't ever see the deposit back. What gives? Where's this deposit going? And where's the $8 from my monitor sale going? Will it at least go toward establishing a facility in downtown San Francisco where I can take my old monitor? Because, so far as I know, it's illegal to put monitors in landfills in San Francisco now.
Breakfast served all day!
Whoever has the most to lose -public relations- wise. Imagine if you read an article that state's Dell now has to pay recycling fee or microsoft. You think dell or microsoft will back down?
It doesn't matter who bears the burden for paying for recycling and disposal. The cost will ALWAYS be passed to consumers.
The real question to be asked here is who bears the burden for making sure that computers and electronics actually get recycled, rather than dumped in a landfill. I'd think that'd be the city waste collection department, and thus the voter-taxpayer.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I am a consumer, so I say that it is the manufacturing corporation which should pay.
As an attempt to be more neutral, I would say both the manufacturer and the consumer should share the cost, 50-50.
Consumers pay all corporate taxes and fees anyhow. Might as well make it explicit where their money is going.
It seems that people have missed the point. It's 10 dollars max. The guy who can't afford another 1 percent on the deal probably isn't buying computers or TV from stores, He's buying them at garage sales. Get a grip people
We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn.
What you need to do is to go grow a victory garden.
Go ahead, I'm not stopping you.
i say its mostly the user because the user is the one who benefits from the use of the product, and therefore must assume responsibility of safe disposal once the product is no longer useful to them.
However i feel the industry should share the burden, as you cant just get it out the door and forget about it i think. Either by making it easier to recycle and by raising awareness -- i find i have to explain to nearly everyone looking to toss there old computer that its illegal to throw out a monitor. I think a good compromise would be for companies to offer incentives on new machine with the recycling or taking of old machine... like at an apple store (where it is most realistic due to their storefronts) if they offer you 5-10% discount on new machines if you recycle your old one, either through them or from a recycling comppany. Its a win win win, as the consumer gets rid of old hardware and gets a discount, the company (apple in this case) would sell a computer (locking them into a brand, not that apple needs more fanatics) and the environment is slightly better off. Apple actually has started doing this for ipods btw, they offer 10% discount and dispose of ipods if you bring in your old model.
Just a thought... another thing i would add is if the government really cared about people recycling computer hardware they would educate and make an effort to simplify and make it less costly to do so. How about a tax refund? anything... thats *if* they really cared, and id say the environment seems to be on the bottom of this administrations list.
Better yet, find a school and donate the computer.
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Radically reduce, if not remove, pollutants from the manufacturing process and reuse the ones you can't replace.
Fujitsu Siemens is the nearest case in point I can find when it comes to environmental manufacturing and even they are limited to a very slim range of boxes....
Fuck knows what the answer is - although I have a nagging doubt that money somehow isn't the answer.
So, you have a $6-$10 recycling charge.
You charge the consumer $11-$15 more up front, and the recycling center GIVES him that extra $5 back when he recycles.
Just like the 5c on soda cans, but with dollars.
And if you can't be bothered, there'll always be some homeless guy, rag-and-bone man or local do-gooder who'll be happy to lug a monitor to the recycle point for you for free, just to get that $5 rebate.
There's already a whole infrastructure set up just for the 5c bounty on soda cans. Can't be too much overhead to the system then, can there?
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
The burden of a tax is the same regardless its statutory (legal) incidence. Producers will attempt to pass on the cost of the tax to consumers through higher prices. Consumers will demand lower prices to compensate for the additional cost of disposal, and will purchase fewer computers. (Consider how much $6-$10 in disposal fees per computer can add up to for a bulk purchaser to see what I mean). So, the entire burden of the tax doesn't always fall on the producers (as has been suggested here).
The actual burden of a tax on anything depends upon the relative sensitivity of consumers and producers to the increase in price that will inevitably result from the tax (price elasticity). In the case of computers, it is (hopefully) safe to conjecture that consumers are relatively more sensitive to a change in price than producers, so the burden will mostly be placed on the manufacturers of computers.
That said, this assumes all disposal fees are collected. I would bet that most private consumers will find their old equipment a permanent home in a dumpster if the taxes are not collected at point-of-sale. Businesses that buy computers, on the other hand, are more likely to get caught and punished if they violate disposal laws, and by and large will probably be the ones paying point-of-disposal taxes.
It takes more energy and is more costly to the environment to recycle just about everything (the one exception in the whole world being aluminum cans) than it is to just bury it in a landfill. The whole "we're running out of landfill space" is chicken-little nonsense.
Economically and politically, it should be the manufacturers:
-Give them a real incentive to design items that will be easier to take apart and recycle. Chances are we will all end up with better designed electronics. If we let them design carelessly, it will be very costly to recycle the resulting mess.
-We allow corporations to operate so long as they do something in the public interest. In this day and age, if a corporation can't take care of its products from cradle to grave it's seriously dysfunctional and should not be allowed to operate.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
My day job is agency approval engineer for a commercial cooking equipment manufacturer. I have to deal with a number of European agencies and regulations. There are two Directives coming into effect within the next 16 months that deal with just this subject.
The first is RoHS, that stands for Restrictions on Hazardous Substances. There are six substances that will be banned in July 2006, including lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls or polybrominated diphenyl ethers. Some of these are used in switches, some on circuit boards, some in other parts of electrical equipment. These will be banned, and manufacturers will need to provide documentation that their products do not contain any of these substances.
The second is WEEE, that stands for waste electrical and electronic equipment . This requires the Manufacturer to be responsible for reclaiming any of their products if they contain hazardous materials. This goes into effect summer this year.
These do apply only in European Union countries (assuming there is an EU after the latest constitutional debacle), China, Japan and others. However, California, Maine, and other US states are also contemplating legislation similar to RoHS and WEEE directives.
So whatever you may think about who's responsible for this, it is going to be the manufacturer who is responsible. And I would bet dollars to donuts that pricing will reflect the cost of this.
The take back program is most appealing ethically, since it encourages re-use. Charging the manufacturer or consumer is essentially the same thing, since manufactures who are required to "pay" for it themselves will just work it into the cost of their products. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
if the consumer is responsible then they need to list their junk on ebay...or actually maybe that would just relocate it.
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
It's E-Cycle! or . . . maybe not.
I work for a Technology Recycling Plant in Puerto Rico (sounds fancy, doesn't it?) and there's always two sides of this story.
/.'ters out there, so maybe that's translated into a couple hundred bucks :)
The first part is that a big chunk of our business is brought by major corporations (Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lexmark). They took the initiative to start picking up unusable equipment they sold (obviously, with incentives for the consumer who brings back that equipment) and then our company picks it up and disposes of the equipment in a safe and good-for-the-environmental way.
The other part is that consumers don't take equipment for recycling. Why? They simply don't see why they should be paying to dispose of something. There are tons of calls made daily to the company asking if they can just dump the equipment in our facilities so we can take care of it. Once the employee tells them there's a fee involved, the conversation *magically* breaks down and the caller leaves rather abruptly.
I believe the manufacturer's should take some responsability, but not ALL of it. The consumer should be responsable too. Hey, it's just a couple of dollars for a lousy computer. Then again, there are a lot of
(This is my first post, BT, yay for me!)
Most manufacturer are just going to charge the consumers extra money to pay the States' fees. Either way, we are ultimately going to flip the bill. I personally don't mind paying it anyway. At this point, I just need a way to dispose of this junk computer equipment. I won't just toss it in the trash because I know about harmful components.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I work in a school, we had had 20 machines being used as footwrests in our office for months, waiting for the day when we could be bothered to note down the serial numbers and dispose of them. Another 20 in a locked up lab because they took 20 minutes to get to a Windows/RM login prompt. All machines wer 5/6 years old. Myself and my colleague have now spent the last few days setting up an LTSP server (www.ltsp.org) and the machines are now running better than the new ones we buy! Total cost to us to gain an extra computing lab £0 - as we already had the server, the server would have cost us £7k but still a great saving over time, considering we also need no licenses for the machines as they are Linux. The kids love em, no training at all and they are already in their surfing the net, using openOffice and printing work out.
The question was asked which option is best. The California option is best is which the burden of resposibility is passed on to the consumer. THE CRV that Californian's must pay for covered ewaste and crts is by far the best siolution to the problem. The additional costs helps to futhur fund programs for recycling and help with the recycling companies trying to keep this stuff out of landfills. Obviously the person who posted has little or no working knowledge erecycling.
I went on Tuesday to a recycling place. I gave them my monitor, they took $10. That's $1/year on the monitor. Not bad considering the original cost. Don't balk at the cost. If you can afford a system, you can afford to pay someone to recycle it.
On Fridays, Californians get to recycle monitors and TVs for free*. And computers are $5 all the time. Laptops are free.
* "In compliance with SB-20/SB-50 you may bring in up to 5 monitors, TVs or Console TVs on Fridays for no charge. There is some paperwork to fill out and you must be a California Resident. Please bring California ID."Here's the ACCRC pricelist in Berkeley.
Charge $10 on a TV, and I STILL can't throw it away, so I'm paying ahead of time to get rid of a monitor that I legally CAN'T get rid of... What's next, paying a tax on murdering someone and still not being able to shoot that damned purple dinosaur?
This is easily the best option presented. This provides manufacturers a supply of cheap raw materials which they can remanufacture and sell back to the market. Why they all don't already do this voluntarily is beyond me. What makes this even better is the fact that the manufacturer has intimate knowledge of what a piece of hardware is composed of and how it is assembled. A general purpose electronics recycling facility can't match that. Then the consumers benefit from not having to guess about the where and how of recycling unneeded electronics. The recycler's branding will be printed all over the hardware. Again, I have to wonder why this isn't already a common practice.
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Either the consumer pays for it, or the consumer pays for it.
Forcing manufacturers will only result in that cost getting passed on to the consumer, PLUS the additional administrative costs that the menufactureres incur.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I've always wondered just how far they can recycle a PC or a monitor.
I can understand simply reusing good parts, but what about completely obsolete parts or bad parts that no longer function properly. When a recycling company gets a bad memory chip what do they do with it?
It seems like the cost of actually breaking those parts down into usable pieces would be a lot more than creating them from scratch and in a market where manufacturers are trying to cut every piece of fluff from the budget due to the massive quantities they must sell I'd be surprised if this is the route they take.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Can't take it AutoZone or Checker, can't take it to a gas station...
I went to a garage sale once, and picked up a very nice and old 5 gallon metal gas can (like for a jeep), welded seams, etc for very cheap - with one hitch: it was full of 5 year old marine gas! I figured, what the heck - somebody will take it, right...?
How wrong I was! The above mentioned places wouldn't take it, the city wouldn't take it (I couldn't even take it to the hazardous materials drop off!), I even called a local custom gas tank repair/manufacturer - they could dump it, but they wanted a $50.00 disposal fee (and even then, they made it clear to me that doing this was really a violation of their disposal license, and they didn't really want to do it)...
You can't just dump it in a car - I had no idea if somebody mixed oil or what in it, plus it being so old who knows what kind of gunk on the bottom it turned into...
Does anybody know what you do with old gasoline (besides burn it!)?
I once toured a company facility where they had developed a processing operation for pulling the precious metals out of tons of networking equipment. I don't remember the exact figures, but they were pulling more precious metals out (X) tons of computer equipment using their process than could be removed form the same amount of raw ore in a mining operation. They were and R&D operation and sold the process to another company, but it makes wonder why anybody is paying to recycle computer equipment when it could be turned into a profitable business.
Insert witty commment here...
[Please feel free to forward this posting below]
If you have an old computer that you no longer use -- working or not -- please consider donating it to the local San Diego PC Recycle Project (sponsored by the Ray and Joan Kroc Corp Community Center, CompuMentor, and Microsoft).
Each computer donated is formatted to ensure your privacy and then reinstalled with a fresh and authorized licensed copy of Windows. We then add "open-source" (free) educational and productivity software. All refurbished computers are customized to address specific educational needs and placed with a family that work directly with the Kroc center. Supporting our program helps to battle the digital divide in our community while saving some environmentally-unfriendly old PCs from the landfill. If you would like a receipt of your donation for tax purposes we are able to provide this to you upon request when you donate your PC.
If you are interested in donating, please respond and I will provide you information about scheduling a drop-off at the Kroc center. Thanks, San Diego! Scott Bass Director, San Diego PC Recycle Project
In conjunction with: The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center | http://www.kroccenter.org/
MS Authorized Reburbisher Program | https://www.techsoup.org/mar/Default.asp
...outa' icecream! Sure, I'll only be able to use it in a walk in freezer, but hanging out someplace with frozen carcasses is a lot cooler than my mom's basement.
I drank what? -- Socrates
They need to account for the environmental costs (as do consumers). Nobody seems interested in doing this upfront but it needs to be part of the accounting scenario.
Ultimately it's still going to be the consumer that pays because the costs will be passed on. It's more appropriate here than a consumer tax on purchase or, God forbid what we've been dealing with in the US, environmental polution and Super Fund clean up sites. In these situations, the cost has been unfairly spread out among all Americans citizens (not the companies) because it's tax dollars that go to clean it up.
By putting the cost into the manufacturing end, it's tracked and paid equitably by all involved in the actual manufacturing and use. In theory, this should provide for less impact on the environment (and the living creatures within it) because then manufacturers are likely to seek to have a lower environmental impact.
There is a similar 'disposal fee' when you get new tires.
Even if you take your old ones with you, they charge you 'assuming' you will 'dump' them somewhere.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
. . . at the feet of whoever wants to recycle? If I want to recycle it (which I often lean in favor of doing for recyclables), I can find someone who will recycle it for me (either at a cost to me or free). If I toss it in the trash, my trash company knows the possibility exists computer parts might be included among the refuse. What they do with the garbage upon reception is their responsibility. If any harmful chemicals were to leak out of the parts and into the trashyard, they *are* responsible for making sure it does not leak into anyone elses property. And if such leakage happens, people can sue for damages.
So, what's the problem?
Then I could take people's old computers AND get paid for it! After all, a 486 is a terrible thing to waste.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
Make it an inexpensive service provided by the local sanitation company. I know mine has a once-a-year event when you can drop off your nasty household chemical waste for free -- that would work for this, too.
Why should the government take money for this? Are they even doing anything in return to effectively collect and dispose of the stuff? My guess is that the money goes into a general fund and is completely unaccounted for.
but what do you do for all the people who dont buy a pc....but buy parts? an extra buck a part? i know were in the minority, but i havent bought a new pc in years and years, i upgrade and upgrade, or rebuild and upgrade more.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Plenty of people are saying, "the consumer always ends up paying the tax." This isn't quite true. The economics says that it doesn't matter who is responsible for paying the tax: The outcome will be the same either way. The consumer and the producer will end up splitting the cost of the tax. Who pays more depends on the scenario. If the computer market were a perfectly competitive market and everyone charged the same price for a computer, then the consumer would be paying the whole tax. But that clearly isn't the case. Different companies charge different amounts for identical hardware. Therefore it is safe to assume that the tax burden will be shared by the manufacturer and the consumer (even if the tax is charged to the consumer). Bottom line: Let them charge whoever they want. It doesn't matter who pays the tax.
In New York or socal, its actually cheaper to eat out. Where land prices are overly high, grocery stores are forced to raise their prices. Its quite funny when I see hamburger meat at $6 a pound when i can go buy 4 quarter pounders from mcdonalds for $5 and its already cooked.
Hypersensitive environmental nanny-statists, you can get anything you want, at Natalie's restaurant.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
This isn't exactly what you are talking about, but it surprised and interesed me all the same: China need for trash insatiable.
I have my old Dell monitor still sitting on the floor for the last, oh, nine months after it died.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This is a tax, plain and simple. I'd give 10 to 1 odds that most of the money will line the pockets of government employees and the hardware will still be shipped to China instead of recycled. Putting more money in the hands of government is never the right solution.
Laws should penalize for crimes, not prevent them. Laws that prevent crimes almost always have undesirable side effects. Given that criteria, neither of these solutions is good. Instead, just make it a crime with a hefty penalty to improperly dispose of the hardware. Then enforce the law. The market can then decide whether consumers or the companies appear to pay.
One more thing... contraty to many of the postings I've read, the consumer doesn't always pay. A company solving a more massive scale problem of disposing large numbers of computers may come up with a more cost effective solution than would be available to individual consumers.
Come on, people. Where do you think the money comes from if the State charges the manufacturers? Do you think the manufacturers have some secret pipeline or something?
It gets added into the sale price, whether you see it or not.
is merely a revenue grab. The only programs that will work are those that involve someone actually being made to recycle something. Examples include the prepaid "return to sender for recycling" progams that Lexmark and other printer cartridge manufacturers created.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Just chunk the shit into one those salvation army/goodwill boxes. That way you are doing a good deed, get to write it off on your taxes, and your garbage becomes someone elses problem.
I would suggest you make the run in the middle of the night.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
...in Hitler's butt?
:^)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185431/
Here in Middlebury Vermont there's a program that 'recycles' old computers given to them into usable computers for low-income households. Back when I was doing volunteer work for them, like 4 years ago, they were trying to use some godaweful dos-based OS /thing/. New Deal or something like that. They were looking into using Linux, but no one had come up with an idiot-proof enough distro yet.
;P
They would charge $5 for each computer, and $5 for each monitor brought in by individiuals, iirc. (as a blanket 'disposal fee' incase they had to trash it) But most of the hardware they got in came from the local college and the like. There'd be pallets and pallets of equipment... Very few non-brandname systems.
Personally, I've never parted with ANY of my computers. Except an old frankenstein jobber I made out of a Packard Bell Pentium 75 system, which I traded for a nice little black and white CCD unit.
Is 'disposing of hardware' really a geek concern? Besides the occasional fragged part, what do we really toss out? Everyone I know holds onto their old pieces-parts 'cause they never know when the stuff'll come in handy. But then, maybe it's just that none of us have significant others to tell us to chuck the crap
So what if my room is starting to resemble Lain's? When I complete my Microchannel Architecture-based giant robot, we'll see who gets the last laugh!!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I live on one side of a shallow urban brook that has many good points: ducks, geese, carp, turtles and the occasional heron. Unfortunately, it has a tire in it about every 40 yards or less. 1/4 mile upstream on the other side is the municipal physical plant that accepts recycling. They charge to take tires.
The conclusion seems obvious. Hell, I don't even have incentive to volunteer my time to fish them out if I will suffer the insult of paying to deposit the fruits of my good citizenship.
CA Bottle deposit laws are broken at reclaimation; sure, there's a "CA redemption value" printed on all the plastic bottles -- but when was the last time you saw a redemption center at your local Safeway/Albertsons/Thrifty/Longs/Red Owl/whatever?
I forsee the same problem for any "deposit" law for computer equipment or tennis shoes or whatever.
Putting a deposit on the thing that you reclaim when something is disposed of properly only works if you provide a location where things can be disposed of properly.
As far as I can tell, nobody ever reclaims these things because it's practically impossible, and concientious people end up paying the non-refundable "deposit", and then paying again to have their recyling hauled away to a recyling plant.
-- Terry
There should be a sliding tax scale. Why should the guy who makes $10 an hour pay a whole hours worth of work to have his monitor disposed, when the guy making $80 an hour only has to pay 7 minutes of his time for the same government service??
Well, some of that is because the guy with $10 an hour spent four to ten years of his post-high-school years making money, during which time the guy with $80 an hour spent those same years *paying* money (about as much as the other guy was *making*) and then educating himself without any guarantee of a return on his investment.
'course, supply and demand is some of that too, but those four-to-ten years come in somewhere.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
i posted the following about Japan, it is still relevant to this discussion
living here in Osaka has been fun for the last ten years.
EXCEPT for when the government wrote the law that said that the consumer must pay the cost of recycling air conditioners, washers, dryers, and now computers.
The reason why it has not been fun is because in the beautiful park nearby - and in the corners of some of the rice fields! - there are piles of dishwashing machines, refrigerators and old "wapro"s (japanese word processors). The city governement becomes responsible after several months of no one claiming them but then the tax payers money gets used for the disposal.
You see, the problematic point is not so much that the little sticker on new machines is there to show that you have prepaid (hence adding to the price of new machines) BUT that all the old machines are levyed for a fee to recycle them.
Many people don't want to spend 7000 yen to get rid of their old air conditioner so they junk it.
Same thing may happen to computers too.
We're about to dump a bunch of our old computers, monitors, and printers in preperation for new gear. I spent part of the day today hunting for recycling outfits, and ended up deciding that it was cheaper and easier to go with a private "e-waste" hauler. I found out that a flat fee of $150 will get 1 TON of computer equipment removed from your business by big burly guys with the tools to move.
In contrast the compter recycling center near us charges $10 for each monitor. We have 15 monitors that we're dumping, so for the same price I could have the pleasure of loading a van several times to personally remove our antique equipment.
I just thought is was interesting that we ARE in California and yet we still have to pay to recycle at the end of the life of the equipment, not just when it's purchased. Do monitors fall outside of the state subsidy?
I've been on Slashdot for years and written thousands of posts (with another personna), and I have to say that this ranks right up there with the best posts ever. It's original, it's funny, it's literate, it isn't too short or too long, it ties together Slashdot culture waay, waaay back, and it doesn't even mangle the verse. If there's ever a story on Slashdot about "Best Slashdot Posts", this definitely goes in there.
Hell. Least I can do is give you a "Friend" rating.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I'm confused.. I thought recycling was supposed to save energy and reduce costs.. hence 'they' should pay you for your junk.. if recycling costs so much, maybe we shouldn't be doing it at all. (if you operate under the assumption, as I do, that cost is a reasonable proxy for resources consumed) (or is it disposal that costs this much?)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
http://www.austincomputerworks.org/
how often does a computer break beyond repair? very rarely in my experience. so, why any tarriff? or are you all throwing away perfectly good computers?
I think it's time for a Best Comments section in the Slashdot Hall of Fame. I'm nominating this one.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If you hold the manufacturer responsible, then what are they supposed to do -- come into my house and take it, whenever they decide that it has become obsolete? Hm.. now that I think of it, if I were a manufacturer lobbyist, I would demand that the manufacturer be responsible. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In the end the consumer pays for it anyhow. The companies will just tack the cost onto the product. Same as how Telco's tack on a fee to recoup the cost of them being mandated to provide free 911 service. It's probably just best to have the companies price it into their systems, that way the tax isn't blatant to people. Everyone notices sales tax, but most people don't notice the 30cents or so of tax on gasoline, since its built into the price already (at least here in California)
Here in Canberra, Australia there is a recycling group at the local landfill. They scavange through the various things that people dispose of, pullout the 'interesting' bits, and then sell them through their shop at a nominal value.
Now the local government authority decided to 'fix' things by requiring people to pay a recycling fee when dropping computer equipment off.
The results were quite interesting:
1) People who made money by purchasing this equipment, refurbishing it, and reselling it went out of business.
2) People started stuffing their old equipment into charity bins and contaminating their contents - or simply stacking them nearby and resulting in the charities being fined for littering.
3) Some (often collectable) equipment was sent to be melted down and scrapped.
4) You see old computers dumped in unusual places, or simply smashed up and disposed of in ordinary garbage.
The end result is a real waste of equipment - it's all simply viewed by people as landfill or scrap metal.
I asked the people who used to collect the equipment from the landfill (or via straight dropoffs) - they won't accept any computer equipment from the public as if they can't sell it they have to pay the recycling fee. They aren't allowed to scavange from the equipment that people have paid the fee on.
They have lost business (they run at a low profit margin as their charter is to provide employment and training while recycling - not make megabucks).
All because the local government thought it was a good idea.
I could never work this out in the original:
"and the judge walked in, sat down with a seeng-eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down."
Just seems too much sitting down, even when you count the seeing eye dog.
(Scary thing is I could hear AGs voice in my head singing and reading the post.)
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
The TV/Monitor tax is put into place because CRTs contain plenty of lead. However, the disposal fee is levied on all monitors, even if the monitor is an LCD or plasma. Thank god for the socialist legislature in California.
During this year and the next, a pair of directives will go into effect in the European Union.
WEEE and RoHS mandate manufacturer takebake of waste electronics, and prohibit the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, or polybrominated fire retardants in electronic equipment.
Fun trivia fact: Did you know that most all network cables include a significant amount of lead in them?
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
how about just offering people a tax break for recycling their stuff? -jsin
I work for several non-profit organizations in Texas and Tennessee. The main one I work with Healing Hands International Inc. which will accept most all computers to be reconfigured and sent to third world countries to be used by missionaries to train locals for future growth in the technological field and service industries. While I know not every organization is like this one, check your local area non-profit groups to see if they would like to accept them as a donation (or tax writeoff :) )
I work in Wisconsin for a company that takes care of electronics recycling from CRTs and PCs to old high voltage switches and used medical equipment. We not only recieve large shipments from Minnesota where landfilling of CRTs is illegal. We also have local collection days every six months where residents can bring their old electronics and trucks to pick up larger business orders. The cost for pickup is payed by those ridding themselves of the items though for the collection days money is only charged on CRTs and LCDs because of the cost invovled with disposing of them. Everything else is somewhat profitable as processors and circuit boards can be recycled for precious metals. There may be some better way of dealing with old hardware, but paying us to dispose of them seems to be working out so far. We handled the regulations, and I get a good job.
In the EU, the responsibility rests on the manufacturer to recycle goods. In practice this means that various recycling systems are set up by the manufacturers. The price for these systems are added to the goods, so in the end the customer always pays. No system that I know of involve the customer paying when disposing stuff. Sometimes there is a deposit involved (as with bottles and cars).
In Norway we have an Enviroment Tax wich I think the sellers are forced to pay. Wich they then pass on to customers, of course.
:)
Works quite well
urd
It might actually work if there were local options. Now that my city will let you drop "toxic" waste off every other sunday I'm happy to give them my oil and chemical containers.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
I think the idea behind prepaying for a service is that you will actually receive that service in the future (without having to pay for it again)
If you pay ahead for recycling, where do you take it to cash in on the service you payed for?
Yeah... bet there is no real service.
And who gets to make money off the parts recycled? Seems pretty lame to me...
Besides, what if I just reuse my parts until they turn to dust, and thus never need any fancy recycling services...
Maybe it is harder to pass bills taxing tech devices than one to charge recycling fees...
Thats what I do!
I watched a really good show on how the ship disposal industry is just as disgusting as PCs. Unscrupulous guys buy these old hulks from their owners for cheap, then turn around and dump them on the shore of India for workers to cut up and sold for big money. No attempt at avoiding environmental contamination or protecting workers is made.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Imposing costs on manufacturers wouldn't pay for the disposal of imported PCs and would make California manufacturers less competitive. Mandatory take-back programs only work if you can recycle anywhere without proof of purchase, but that has other obvious problems.
I think the California approach is the best compromise.
However, I think consumers should donate their old computer equipment to computer recyclers anyway--many of those machines are still useful to lots of people.
In Belgium you pay a recycling tax on each erlectronic device. The price payed depends on the size. here some prices
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
when you recycle empty beercans you get 0.50skr/can. when you recycle paper you used to get money aswell. not any more tho for some reason.... ....and, getting off topic here, but this is just so stupid: the stupid friggin government approved a new law to tax cds and dvds wirh 0.004 skr/MB, ending up at twice the price of a dvd.
but when it comes to computers, the rules are suddenly different as always. Now WE have to pay them to take care of the material.
because god forbid people would recycle anything, or save anything they have done. We might achtually *shudder* evolve!
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive due to come into force in the EU in 2006 means that maufacturers will be responsible for collection and recycling. Will PCs become more expensive? Maybe, but it'll probably mean that PCs will become easier to recycle and maybe even longer lasting.
Check out the WEEE man that sits by the Thames in London - built from the ammount of waste that a single individual throws away in a lifetime (3.3 tonnes)
These discarded computers should be:
1. Sent to prisons for prisoners to refurbish; the benefit is helps teach prisoners a new skill they can actually put to use upon release.
2. Send the refurbished computers to low-budget schools and underprivileged families; the benefit is obvious.
This way the consumers aren't charged a discard fee, some prisoners may learn a skill they can use to get a job so they won't be out of work and tempted to go back to crime, and some children may be given an additional fighting chance to make it in the world so they don't end up in prison.
Just a thought.
http://xs4.xs.to/pics/04481/p556222.gif
Recycle your own, pay a few neighborhood kids to smash them up and melt them down over some burning tires.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Exactly. The problem is that for hazardous materials, what is best for a single entity (person/company) is not what is best for the entire community. This is what is known as the "tragedy of the commons". For those who aren't familiar with this phrase, it's worth-while to read about it. In many ways, it is similar to the more familiar prisoner's dilemna.
This is a problem inherent in the capitalistic system. I'm not advocating socialism, but pure capitalism is not a valid economical system as these problems so simply demonstrate. A mixture (which both the US and most of Europe already has - although definitely in different percentages) is a reasonable compromise.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I mean, seriously. Can you imagine having an automated arm that picks up trash cans? You're walking down the street, minding your own business, when suddenly your automated arm decides to pick up a trash can. :P
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
really matter - the consumer will end up paying for it anyway -
if the manufacturer pays for it - they will just up the price of the system - if the municipality pays for it the taxes will just go up - so I guess it should be the consumer paying for it on an as needed basis - the only problem is if they don't do it then your not really gaining anything. so it probably should be the municipality responsibility to do it - I think it would just be easier if you could put your old monitor out on trash day and have them take it to the proper recycling center.
that is what will benefit the planet the most because it will be easy and people will do it.
No-one will bother to recycle their computers if they have to pay, they'll just landfill them. Case in point, I know there's a guy down the road to my house who will take any computers and recycle them properly (got an certificate from the government environment agency - I forgot their TLA, shame on me!) so I always stockpile old/broken computers from everyone and give them all to him. Recenly, I got 4 broken CRT monitors, and was about to give them to him, and was told "£10 fee each monitor". £40 to dispose of 4 CRT's is too much for me, so I'm stuck with 4 broken CRTs, and while I can just toss it in the landfill, I have ethical problems with that, but I think in the end I think my wallet will win over my heart and I will toss them in the landfill. I think I'm more ecological minded than the man in the street, but not even I will cough up £10 per monitor to get them recycled, why would you expect the guy in the street to pay to recycle them...?
But which one is more likely to get the consumer's attention?
If we charge the consumers at POS, and make it show up on the their bill, then they are more likely to take ownership in making sure the recycling happens.
I once worked at a software company designing/maintaing a payroll system. When it came time to design the check writing portion, my (Republican-leaning) boss suggested that we have an option to include not just the employee taxes on the check stub, but also the employer taxes (FUTA, SUTA, FICA-ER, etc.) so the employees would know just how much in taxes they were actually paying (many of you would be surprised!). He was (mostly) kidding, but I thought it an interesting idea. How much more would we demand of our government (Dems, Repubs, and others alike) if we truly knew how much we actually paid in taxes? Could you imagine if there was an annual statement that said: here's how much you paid in employee/employer taxes, and here's how much you paid in property taxes, and here's how much you paid in sales tax (let's imagine, without the scary big-brother connotations, that the government knew how much we paid in sales tax)? I'm probably leaving out a tax (or two) here, but you get the idea.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Well that's awful interesting. I've lived in Maine for the better part of a decade now and this is the first I've heard about this. My town's recyling center charges $20 to accept a TV and I've heard people from other towns complaining about the same thing.
I guess I'm not surprised. Maine has been developing a reputation for driving away larger job-providing businesses and then taxing its citizenry into oblivion. This sounds like just another side of the same coin.
Call it what it really is - a NEW TAX!
maybe give them to third world countries?? i remember reading about an organization here on Slashdot that put together computers using mostly obsolete computer parts, but still plenty capable of using the Internet, then they'd give them to countries or schools or anybody that needed a computer.. i think people should take their broken computers to a center where they can be gutted and brought back to life somehow..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Both approaches are wrong. Charging at time of purchase a disposal fee is placing the burden on the wrong person. They may end up selling it or giving it as a gift. Therefore they're not the ones causing a problem.
Charging the computer makers is also wrong. They're making a product people want. They shouldn't need to even see it again.
The disposal fee should be paid by the person who actualy disposes of it. This will encourage people to take it somewhere for recycling who will buy it from them, instead of to the dump where they'll have to pay to get rid of it.
When they collect a recycling deposit on soft drink bottles, you can return that bottle to any place that sells that brand and get a refund of the deposit. Since the fee is collected on computers when sold, any place that sells computers should then be able to pay the person who returns a used computer the fee collected. If they are only required to accept returns up to the number of computers they sell, it should cost the merchant nothing, and they can sell the computers to actual recyclers to get the small cost of accepting returns (most stores have some amount of space they can use for storing recycled computers pending disposition).
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Perhaps I'm associating "stereotypical Republican" anti-environmentalism with capitalism. (I say "stereotypical" with the understanding that there are many Republicans who are not anti-environment.) Many Republicans, however, seem to have a problem with regulating the pollution that companies dump into the air and/or water. (The laughable Clear Skies Initiative comes to mind, "using a proven, market-based approach" (quote taken from the web-site). Nevertheless, the primary problem with the CSI is not the approach, but the weakening of the target standards as well as delaying the enforcement of those standards.) I agree, however, that one could have a capitalistic economy that theoretically figures such things in. I am, no doubt, confusing the terms Republican and Capitalist.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Why bill the consumer for disposal?
The Law clearly states that the manufacturer of a chemical has "cradle-to-grave" responsibility for the substance. So should it be for electronics! The manufacturer should be legally required to offer prepaid shipping to their selected recycling plant for all discarded equipment. HP has been doing this for years fortheir LaserJet cartridges.
This would be a cost of doing business to the equipment manufacturer, just as it is for other industries. This would be factored into the selling price.
Now if the Consumer refuses to avail himself of this, then the responsibility falls on him for not recycling. But the addition of a Government-collected "recycling fee" is utter BS- it is but another way that the Government fleeces the People, IMHO.
?
The costs should be borne by the manufacturers. They will be passed to the consumers, as usual.
According to Coase theorem, the most socially efficient way to take care of an externality (problem with costs) with transactions costs (large number of entities (consumers) working with a small number of entities (manufacturers) is to have the party with the best idea of how to estimate and deal with the costs of the externality internalize (bring in as part of manufacturing cost) it.
Computer manufacturers are best positioned to estimate and deal with the costs of recycling. Generally, this would be by charging consumers for the cost of recycling and consuming or reselling the raw materials gained by recycling.
>_> c'mon, you've never taken an economics course?
_ It seems, neither has California.
I can see "off topic," "overrated," "funny," and "informative."
However, to call it "flamebait" leaves three possibilities:
1) The moderator never owned a Dell.
2) The moderator works for Dell.
3) Somehow, sometime, Dell actually shipped someone a unit that didn't start falling apart in the first few days. = This possibility should probably get tagged "funny" or "naive" just on its own.
hawk, looking about the room at the pieces that have fallen off the Dells he has to deal with.
"Dude! You got Delled!"
Whose Burden is it to Recycle Computers?
Mine. I run a computer refurbishing center. We still take in computers as old as the Pentium II. It's a good business. I can resell a Pentium II laptop for $200.00. Not bad when I buy them for $50 or less.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
The concept of putting the responsibility on the manufacturers is so that they will design their products so that it is easy to recycle.
Cradle to Cradle is a good book on this subject.
Charge the purchaser $50 up front and give them back $40 when they recycle the product. The only problem is that this should be some sort of secured funds just in case the company goes under. This takes care of the "incentive" and also covers the cost of recycling. Here's another idea. Charge $50 up front and give back $50 when it is recycled. The company has 3 yrs (avg. lifespan) to invest the money and make a profit off the interest that will cover the recycling cost. Seems like a win-win.
...and they're replacing it with WHAT?
At best the removal of lead from solder formulas is expensive, and protectionist. At worst, it will trigger widespread failures in high relibility gear when tin whiskers start forming wherever the new solder was used.
This reminds me of those who were so eager to get Tetra-Ethyl-Lead (TEL) out of gasolene that they replaced it with MTBE. TEL is not particularly soluble in water; MTBE is. So instead of polluting the air, we're polluting the water supply. Some improvement that was!
Besides, this doesn't remove all lead. It removes only the lead in solder. Each use of lead should be carefully considered, but it should not be eliminated outright. The alternatives may be worse.
In a broader sense, recycling electronics is not trivial. There are lots of toxic materials in electronic componenents. It would be nice if someone could devise a system where everything went through a shredder and all the elemental materials were recovered somehow.
I haven't heard of anyone who has developed a process of this sort. Could there be a business opportunity here?
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I've never seen anything about recycling a computer where I've ever lived.. We just throw them in the trash cans or set them beside them...
Many places don't have anything setup to recycle electronic/electrical equipment but it's something that should be done. Some of these have toxic substances such as PCBs used in the manufacture. CRTs for instance contain lead which if it ends up in a landfill can contaminate ground water while PCBs contaminate the atmosphere and bioaccumulates. Here's a couple of articles on PCBs. EPA, GE negotiations may delay dredging is about the cleanup of the Hudson River because of the PCBs GE released into it while this one, Contaminated Arctic only looks pristine From kelp to Inuit mothers' milk, all suffer from migration of industrial toxins , describes some effects PCBs have on Inuit women of the Artic who use no PCB. PCBs have also shown up in orcas especially the J, K, and L pods of Puget Sound. The demand for Coltan, columbite-tantalite, used in cellphones is responsible for the fighting and deaths in the Congo, Congo's Conflict: Heart of Darkness
FalconWith 30,000 deaths a month from violence and disease, Congo is the world's deadliest place.
Does anyone care?
Should there be a Law?
In a broader sense, recycling electronics is not trivial. There are lots of toxic materials in electronic componenents. It would be nice if someone could devise a system where everything went through a shredder and all the elemental materials were recovered somehow.
I haven't heard of anyone who has developed a process of this sort. Could there be a business opportunity here?
IBM has setup a program to recycle computer equipment as has other manufacturers. I don't know all the details but what they do is ship all the hardware to one location where it is sorted and tested. Good stuff can be reused while what isn't good is shredded or something like that. A few hours ago I found out Apple has started a new program for iPods.
iPod Recycling Program
Bring any used iPod, iPod mini or iPod photo to any of the more than 100 Apple Stores in the US for free environmentally friendly recycling and get a 10% discount on the purchase of a new iPod that same-day. See your store for details.
While doing a quick search I found this:
Eco-Tech: Doing well by doing good
Much of our coverage on the environment and technology has focused on global regulations aimed at reducing/eliminating hazardous substances or increasing recycling or reuse. While most has been about the costs and benefits of compliance, we think there is great marketing opportunity in going green (see the AMR Research Alert article "Green Compliance: It's a Marketing Opportunity, Not a Burden" for more on that).
A few weeks ago GE made a splashy announcement of its "ecomagination" initiative. The company is developing 17 new products and technologies aimed at improving the environment. Executives expect the new offerings to generate $20B in revenue by 2010. Its plan is to double its R&D budget to $1.5B over the same period. Any bets on which big company will be next?
FalconShould there be a Law?
The articles I pulled up point to NYC's Bloomberg wanting to stop recycling programs, because it costs more. Well duh, to anyone who believed it was cheaper, I got a recycled bridge to sell you.
I wish I still had an article I used to have. It was about how Bloomberg wanted to stop recycling in NYC, and a company who did the pickup for recycling said they would pay to pickup the recycling. As far as costs, it's cheaper to recycle sooner than wait until you run out, what are you going to do when the materials that were trashed run out? Or what about when your drinking water has a bunch of nasty chemicals, like lead, that seeped into the ground water from landfills?
FalconShould there be a Law?
And I work in a CPA firm which handles several LLCs and I can tell you that if your friends businesses are making a significant amount of money, that they haven't elected to be treated as a personal service C-corporation and subject themselves to a 35% tax rate, and that they aren't paying themselves any income, then they are committing tax evasion. Besides all this, I'm not sure why you'd choose an LLC. There are very few benefits and numerous expenses. For a profitable closely held corporation which is primarily in the business of performing personal services the S-corporation is usually the most advantageous tax-wise, but even then if you don't pay yourself any salary and make more than a little bit of money you are almost guaranteed to be audited.
Actually LLCs can be very advantageous. My sister, who's a CPA and with friends started their own account firm, has formed some LLCs. She and her husband, who is a CFP (Certified Financial Planner), have bought some homes they rent out. They formed an LLC for each house which is the registered owner of the house. If something happens to the house just the LLC looses and the other ones aren't at risk. In two or three years I'm hoping to go the same.
FalconShould there be a Law?