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British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee
An anonymous reader writes "Next week the province of British Columbia will begin adding a recycling fee to new computers and TVs to pay for their free electronics recycling program. The list of what is acceptable for recycling is short, namely computers, printers, and TVs — you cannot recycle personal audio players or cell phones. What is unclear is whether the definition of 'desktop computer' includes self-built computers, and if so, their plans for adding fees for individual components such as motherboards, etc." The article notes that the recovered e-waste will not be sent to developing countries for processing. But one report says that the e-waste won't be recycled at all, but rather burned in a smelter.
Next week the province of British Columbia will begin adding a RECYCLING FEE to new computers and TVs to pay for their FREE electronics recycling program.
ain't no mo free...
On a more serious note, there is more value to be extracted from electronic junk then for the same weight of ore in mining.
Perhaps this is an opportunity for improving the recycling process and maybe adjust the manufacturing process to accomodate the end life cycle of recycling.
"adding a recycling fee to new computers and TVs to pay for their free electronics recycling program"
.....oh dear.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
This fee is already charged in Alberta for the last couple of years. It was also introduced in Saskatchewan in February.
5 4704-cp.html
It could also soon be charged in Ontario:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/06/12/42
California has implemented something like this already.
f e-ucla-flyer_english.pdf (pdf)
http://www.boe.ca.gov/sptaxprog/ewfaqsgen.htm
I think the fee is only collected on displays, but you are allowed to drop off/recycle most electronic goods and unsafe chemical items. I don't know if the fee is covering this service.
http://www.lacity.org/san/solid_resources/pdfs/sa
I've dropped off my old 386/486 computers, CRT, and accessories (mouse, joysticks, floppy disks, dead HDs).
http://www.sweepit.ca/
l ing.php
http://www.sarcsarcan.ca/sarcan/electronics_recyc
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
It's to pay for their printer recycling program!
Well, if you have to pay a tax for it, it ain't exactly free, is it?
Sent from my iPhone
But, and I emphasize the word 'but', simply having these old consumer electronics materials carted off to an smelter in trail is ever so head scratching.
what's truly ever so head-scratching is this author's command of grammar.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Alberta already has something similar for monitors and televisions.
Why is this newsworthy ? We have had this in the Netherlands for years. Funny thing is that you have to pay this recycle tax when you buy the product and you have to pay again when you throw it away. So nothing to see here, just some new means to justify some additional taxes.
Legislation is being discussed but not implemented yet. There are words that the new tax will come after February 2008.
Since Ontario already has 14% taxes on electronics (6% Federal + 8% Provincial), the add on recycle tax could increase the total taxes to about 17-20%. So considering an average video card costs around C$130-150, consumers are expected to pay about C$30 more off the listed price.
An alternative to tax increase? How about have people who want to dispose their working electronics to claim tax credit if they manage to sell the items off in used market? My experience is that if you sell each item below C$20, local people (seniors in particular) would buy it and in effect recycle them for you for free!
Why is it that people don't even read the summary nowadays? Who the flying FUCK in their right mind would go on about the fact that they're charging for a free service, if the relevant bit is: you pay for a service that is worse for the environment than almost any other kind of waste dumping (bar dumping stuff into lakes, that can end up very badly).
"But one report says that the e-waste won't be recycled at all, but rather burned in a smelter."
.005 in/yr, or 0.010? zzzzzz But it's what pays the bills.
But dropping it in a smelter is recycling. Junk goes in, refined metal comes out. Smelters do not run on solid fuel anymore, they can't grind up the circuit boards and feed them to the burners.
The organics will burn in the charge, the fiberglass will melt into the slag, the metals will dissolve into the melt.
I forgot how to separate the lead from the copper. (pyrometallurgy class was in 1988, and I went the hydrometallurgy route instead)
Now I'll have to look it up.
The pyro class took a field trip to Trail, neat place if you are into displays of brute power. Sometimes I miss mining. Phys met is so boring; did it corrode
Just in case people don't understand how big BC is - it's 357,216 square miles - think California, Nevada and Oregon put together (which total ~366,000 square miles)
And while it's population is only 4,352,798, it's still a lot of people.
The BC government plans to cover all that with only 70 locations to turn in materials.
Right, whatever.
This is nothing more than blatant thievery by the BC government and "Encorp", the company administering the whole process.
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There is more gold and copper per pound in e-waste then there is in gold or copper ore. There is a LOT of potential to "mine" this for the metals, however the lead and mercury content is also high....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Since Jan 2005, California has been charging an E-Waste Recovery Fee for some time now. Whenever you sell something to a California resident that has a display (CRT/LCD/etc), you have to charge this fee and give it to the state:
4-15 inches : $6
15-35 inches: $8
35+ inches : $10
The fee is not a deposit either, like you have on soda cans. If you take your CRT to the dump later, even if you can prove you paid that E-Waste fee, you still have to pay the dump to take your trash.
More Info: http://www.erecycle.org/
-David
... When they don't actually recycle the product, but apparently only dispose of it?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
HOME TOWN SHOUT OUT! WOOT WOOT...
That said, hahhaha, BCers, we get all your tax money now!
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
It's a good thing that BC is doing, but it will only recycle these computers. There are many opportunities to give computers to be used again in schools or for people who cannot afford to purchase a new computer. This is unfortunately causing CompuCycle (http://www.compucycle.iscn.ca/), the only computer recycling operation on Vancouver Island, to be closing once it comes into effect in August. They would refurbish the computers that could be used and supply them to people who were in need of them.
In Norway (as in the EU) the producers and importers are responsible for the recycling of the products. For the consumer i works like this:
If a shop sells TVs, computers and dishwashers, you can give all your old TVs, computers and dishwashers to the shop. You don't have to buy anything at the shop.
Any biz. selling any EEE (electrical and electronic equipment) have to accept for recycling the same type of things.
We have a similar thing with car tyres and battery and some other stuff...
A smelter isn't an incinerator.
A smelter is the thing that's used to take ore and turn it into usable metal. You know, like the thing in T2 that Arnold jumps into at the end.
Sounds like they've decided the easiest way to extract the metal from the electronic waste is to burn off everything that isn't metal, then separate the metals back out.
Now, there may be questions about how environmentally sound it is to burn off plastic and fiberglass, but this is definitely recycling.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Seriously, ISTM that a recycling program which takes all electronics would be a better idea. Otherwise this other stuff will just go into a landfill.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, we are a computer integrator/reseller in Alberta, and have had to charge these fees for a couple of years now.
Then Sask jumped on, now BC, and soon all the rest of the provinces.
But, and it is a BIG "BUTT":
We now have to collect separately for each province we sell into, report each month to each province, remit to each province
The paperwork for this equals one person-day per month for all the reporting and filing.
This is a classic example of what should have been done at the federal level, and now is more of a burden than a benefit.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
This is just another tax grab by the government here. None of the e-waste is going to be recycled, it is just going to the landfill. But they'll put a eco-fee on it anyway.
I swear, if they could figure out how to tax the air we breathe they would. I live in British Columbia so I know.
This is nothing but FUD. BC is 357,216 square miles and contains 4.3 million people (note: I did not verify the parent's numbers, but they seem reasonably correct from memory). On the other hand, California, Nevada, and Oregon put together contains 39 million people. That's almost a 10x difference.
Also remember, the population of Vancouver, Victoria, and the next 3 largest cities in BC total 2.8 million. That's 65% of the entire population of the province, with Vancouver comprising 2.1 million of the total alone. I'm pretty sure the recycling program exists THERE.
Given how dense Victoria, Vancouver, and its outlying areas is (after all, the whole region is walled in by mountains), 70 locations is not outrageous, and can in fact cover a LOT of people's recycling needs.
So take the "blatant thievery" and shove it, unless you have some real proof of a conspiracy to steal taxpayer dollars.
Every cell phone provider has a cell phone recycle program.
Just phone your support line and ask for instructions.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If electronics were really worth recycling, private parties would gladly pay us money for said electronics. The fact that the government has to charge a compulsory fee is all one needs to know about the integrity of the recycling movement.
All this will do, is encourge people to just dump their waste to avoid this pointless fee.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I worked for a non profit computer recycling facility in the Comox Valley in BC. The reason why you would need to charge a recycling fee would be to pay the recyclers their 8bux an hour, and help cover the shipping costs of all the materials once they were sorted and packaged as best as we could. Being a non profit, we did things on the cheap and some things were not as safe as it should have been (like crushing monitor glass). I know that if we had more money, things would have been done with more concern for safety (breathing in old photocopier toner and monitor glass dust is pretty terrifying... I am pretty sure my little paper mask didn't save the day)
Ewaste is a huge problem. There are many dangerous chemicals in electronics and without a place to properly dispose of them, it goes to the landfill. Our main goals were to keep it out of the landfill, and keep it out of China. We sent most of our sorted recyclables to Vancouver to a prison that had a computer recycling program (for further sorting), and from there they went all over north America.
There is NOT A LOT OF MONEY in this. Plastic sold for a few cents a pound, and was a huge hassle to package and ship. Sure, you can say "what about the gold on the processors" but computers are mostly steel and plastic, and very little gold. Sadly that little operation shut down due to lack of funding. This program is exactly what BC needs. People don't think about their waste in this disposable society, and if it takes money to make them consider it, I say it's worth it. This sort of tax is similar to the car battery or tire tax, the money just helps keep the programs funded to properly dispose of the waste.
Everyone be scared! Everyone scream at the evil things portrayed in the article! ... Or, instead you can educate yourself.
... it gets melted down in a smelter. ... it gets melted down in a smelter. ... it gets melted down in a smelter.
... where peasants smash and burn the parts in the open air of their villages and manually stir vats of acids filled with the metallic ashes to recover the metals, where they let all the chemicals run down the streets into the local soils and water sources.
Generally people have no clue what happens in the mining industry, how metals are actually extracted from the ground and refined. I LOVE it when I see people protesting the mining industry in general, while using their cell phones, full of metals, while wearing clothes that were made on metal machines, with their metal car or bike parked nearby. They have no clue. It's great fun showing them the irony of their actions.
This ignorant FUD article is no different.
If it wasn't for smelters, the computer parts being recycled would never have existed in the first place! but people read the headlines and just assume the worst.
What happens when you recycle a pop can?
What happens when your car is recycled?
What happens when to pretty much any metal product when it is no longer useful?
It's about time the same happened to computer parts.
The government of British Columbia used to sell surplus computers and monitors as scrap.
The news media here caused great embarassment to the BC government a few years ago when they exposed the fact that the scrap ended up in the shocking Chinese 'recycle' system we've all seen on TV
So the BC government actually did something about it.
Smelting it here in BC in a controlled manner where emissions are regulated, where thousands of people will NOT have their lives greatly shortened by the process, where ground water, lakes, rivers, and soil will NOT be destroyed by the process, sounds like a much better system to me.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
My town in New Hampshire recently imposed a $10 fee for recycling CRTs; just when I decided to dispose of my 2 old monitors and a TV. I'm thinking, I have to pay $30 to "do the right thing"? I'm very strongly tempted to put them in a bag, so they look like every-day trash, and push them into the pile with the rest of the trash.
The outfit I work for went from 500 people to about 20 when the bubble burst, and we had a lot of surplus stuff to get rid of. We ended up selling lots of cool-looking flashing-light junk to movie people for props, cherry-picked a bit for ourselves, and sold the rest to a local guy who specializes in industrial cleanup. He ground up most of it (circuit boards and things) to extract the metals. We promptly christened him Dr. Junk.
Before he got the boards (some quite valuable in their time) we made sure, with a hammer and an anvil, that the boards wouldn't make it back in to service. Downsizing can have its rewards. :-)
...laura
They re-use old cellphones, pagers, crackberries, etc, by repairing your old phone and then give them to charities. Non-working ones at the least have their batteries recycled. They also have kits available to setup colection stations at your work or elsewhere, and I have seen several collection stations setup that look like USPS mailboxes repainted. Ive sent a few phones their way in the past. Its better than just throwing them out or letting them sit around!
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Time to move out of that liberal shit hole and go somewhere where the government isn't so oppressive.
If I had mod points I would use them for you buddy, instead all you get is my admiration on a post well done.
+1 notastupidsheep modifier
insight through the mind
Being a geological engineer working in the mining industry... the public doesn't have a clue, I agree. Having done a bit of work in landfills and subsurface contamination, again, people have no clue. Nice to know there's someone else out there.
Well said. Over here in the UK it's called Nimby-ism - Not In My Back Yard (which suggests the expression might have come from over the pond).
People have to grow up and realise throwing away stuff has consequences. Well done to BC for taking responsibility of their own rubbish rather than messing up some third world country with it.
As an aside, I heard that its becoming more profitable to recycle scrap than to mine for some metals, is this true? As in, it's cheaper to melt down and process X weight of processor boards to get 100 grams of gold than it would be to dig Y tons of ore out the ground, crush it, pour in cyanide, dispose of the toxic waste, etc.. Can you comment?
It's called recupel http://www.recupel.be/
"Remember that the state can print as much money as it likes, so taxation is purely to keep the overall amount of money out there from spiralling upwards"
;).
:).
Actually printing money is a form of taxation. Whoever gets to print the money taxes the rest who don't. Think about it.
It is a great advantage to the USA that so many countries trade in US dollars, and many keep billions of it in reserve. A vast amount of USD is outside the USA.
1) The US Gov can print more money and automatically "tax" everyone else (including other countries!) by reduce the value of the USD. Remember the prices of lots of international stuff are in USD and it takes a while between "more money printed" and "people to figure out the USD has gone down in value".
2) The USA doesn't need to keep reserves of other country's currencies
Remember: you can also "print money" by issuing IOUs. The US Gov issues a lot of these and Japan, China etc buy them (after all what can they do with the excess billions of USD they earn from selling stuff to the USA? They sure don't spend as much as the US). The US then promptly buys more stuff from them
It's a weird scheme that's probably going to blow up eventually, but so far it's lasted longer than the other strange schemes
It'll probably last longer if more of the money just kept circling about between USA, Japan and China, and less was "burnt" in Iraq etc.
But what do I know, I'm not an economist.
I can tell you, I was SHOCKED TO DEATH the first time I did some with earned income credit.
Some people genuinely do have negative tax return figures, and when filing, get more than they paid in over the year- a net negative for federal over the year.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
every factory should have zero emissions and every product should be recycled by the manufacturer
every product should cost what it cost to produce and recycle with zero emissions
the solutions are simple, however greed gets in the way
They are as follows:
Television (18" and smaller) $15.00
Television (19"- 29") $25.00
Television (30" - 45") $30.00
Television (46" and larger) $45.00
CPUs (including mouse, keyboard, cables, speakers.) $10.00 (basically, $10 for your entire computer)
Printers/printer combos $8.00
Laptops/electronic notebooks $5.00
Computer monitors $12.00
http://www3.gov.ab.ca/env/waste/ewaste/index.html
And if it means all these electronics are going to be recycled/reused in a more efficient manner, I have no problems with theses fees. It's better than my broken 50" TV or desktop computer getting buried in the earth. Most of the fees are incidental compared to the total purchase price of the goods anyways.
There are some major problems with the linked article on neoseeker. Sarah Westervelt of the Basel Action Network, was never contacted by the reporters. The quotes of her are fabricated.
At Free Geek Vancouver, we believe the program is a step in the right direction and we are working hard to ensure that working hardware is rescued for re-use, and that provisions are made to disassemble recyclables and process individual components in the most environmentally responsible way, rather than directing the entire stream to a smelter.
The following is the Basel Action Network's position with respect to the BC recycling program:
(statement begins)
Basel Action Network maintains that:
1. Advanced recycling fees are not a good financing mechanism in that they do not involve the manufacturers in the end-of-life management of their products, and thereby do nothing to drive redesign for the environment and human health. If manufacturers have to pay for end-of-life costs (e.g. via incorporating these costs into the price of a new product), then they have a direct economic incentive to redesign their products to be less toxic, more upgradeable, more easily recycled, and perhaps longer lived. Ultimately, toxic waste issues must be addressed upstream in the manufacturing phase of a product's lifecycle.
2. Reuse of electronics is environmentally preferable to destruction, but only if tested working and labeled equipment with a long life is allowed into the reuse market, and particularly the developing countries. Both the EU and Australia have developed detailed criteria for determining when a used electronic is a product acceptable for exporting for reuse, or is a waste, based on interpretation of the international treaty (Basel Convention) that governs the trade in toxic wastes. (www.basel.int) Our criteria for tested working equipment would allow for older equipment that runs on open source software to be allowed into the reuse market, if it is tested and fully functional, and has a reasonable life expectancy.
3. Refurbishment/repair of equipment generated in developed countries such as Canada or the US must occur in the developed world prior to export to developing countries, if those repairs will result in the replacement or removal of a hazardous part (such as circuit boards, CRTs, fluorescent lamps, batteries, etc.) In order to determine what types of repairs are needed, testing must be accomplished.
4. Smelters play an important role in reclaiming metals from materials. Because smelting always creates toxins, it is important to only use smelters that use the best technology to minimize the creation of dioxins and furans, and to capture toxic air emissions. Circuit boards and other metal-bearing e-scrap generated in developed countries should only be smelted in developed countries. We support the use of smelters in countries such as Canada, US, Belgium and Sweden, rather than using smelters in the developing countries. We do not support sending this entire e-waste stream directly to smelters, where much of the materials are not reclaimed, but rather are burned (which is a form of disposal, including waste-to-energy processes.) End-of-life electronics should be manually or mechanically separated and subsequent materials sent for material separation and reuse (e.g. plastics back into plastics usage, etc.) rather than burned or used as BTUs in a thermal process, even in waste-to-energy facilities. Thermal processing of plastics impregnated with brominated flame retardants can create brominated dioxins and furans at certain temperatures.
(statement ends)
-- PaulT, freegeekvancouver.org
We're charged the recycling fee when we buy certain products here, and charged again when we recycle them.
if you go to a salvage yard you get charged a recycling fee as well.
then they wonder why people just toss poisonous things into the trash.
The electronic's industry offsets the "cost" of their externalities onto the community, the government is effectivley subsidising the cost of handling waste products by sanctioning release (by burning) of toxic chemicals. We either pay for the externality via toxic pollution or increased price of products to cater for the waste re-processing. For example if industry had to pay for the damage caused by releasing these chemicals then perhaps recovering resources like Coltan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan from that waste would become viable. Instead the risk of litigation is considered.
Surely it would make sense to recover resources from the waste products when they are gathered in one place, especially if you have sufficient volume of e-waste.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.