States Push Makers' Role In Disposing of Electronic Waste

AaronParsons writes "An interesting NY Times article describes currently available programs for post-consumer electronics. One of the many interesting points in the article is that electronics manufacturers should be held responsible for recycling their products post-consumer: 'Maybe since they have some responsibility for the cleanup, it will motivate them to think about how you design for the environment and the commodity value at the end of the life.'"

Comments

Re:This is a terrible idea

[Useful Wheat]

In Grand Junction, Colorado it is illegal to simply dump your electronics in the trash. You're required to pay a $50 processing fee for all old electronics. This includes computers, televisions, and basically anything larger than an iPod. $5-10 to dipose of your electronics with this other company is not a bad deal at all.

Re:How the?

[dunkelfalke]

Sorry, but you are talking bullshit.

I used to work for some waste management companies.
Recycling makes lot of sense and while it does create pollution, it creates much less pollution than producing new raw materials. This is especially true for all kinds of metal, paper, glas and more expensive forms of plastics (like polycarbonate).

Since the raw material supply is finite, recycling will return even more money in the future than it does now already - and 2009 technologies allow recycling to be pretty profitable in first place. Thus it makes sense to invest in recycling technologies now (or being caught with your trousers down in the future).