Electronic waste: legislation has only dented the problem

States are finally paying attention to electronic waste. Three states (California, Maine, and Maryland) have passed laws that encourage or mandate recycling of some consumer electronics, and five other states require studies of the e-waste problem. In 2004 and 2005, 24 other states considered some kind of e-waste legislation.

Even California's law, the most progressive to date in the U.S., has major flaws. It does not require product designs that minimize hazardous materials or facilitate recycling, and it does not require manufacturers to assume responsibility for eventual disposal of their products. Instead the state assumes the entire responsibility for locating and safely recycling old products - an energy-intensive, laborious process that still produces toxic waste. California law mandates recycling only of cathode ray tubes (CRTs). Any other e-waste, as well as improperly discarded CRTs, goes into the dump as before. Further, many of these obsolete electronics are `recycled' under environmentally horrendous conditions in Asia.

In Europe, in contrast, electronics producers are required to take back their own products. Such a requirement encourages manufacturers to design modular, upgradeable, and less hazardous products.

Toxicity of e-waste

Unlike simple products such as glass and paper, today's electronics cannot be easily recycled. Their circuit boards, solder, wires, and plastic parts contain toxins such as arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, and lead. "Exporting Harm", a February 2002 report from Basel Action Network and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition on electronics `recycling' in China, focused on the specialized village of Guiyu. Here investigators found uninformed, untrained, and unprotected workers disassembling computers mainly from North America. Workers heat circuit boards over coal braziers until the chips are removable, then pour aqua regia (a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids) over the circuit boards to extract precious metals. The acids are dumped in the river. Children chip plastics that will later be melted in unventilated rooms. Plastics and leaded glass from computer monitors line the irrigation canals, making the groundwater undrinkable. Another village is covered with black-ash residue from the burning of plastic wires to recover the copper. The ash contains dioxins and furans derived from polyvinyl chloride, and brominated flame retardants from the plastic.

A follow-up report from Greenpeace in August 2005 on electronics `recycling' workshops in China and India found equally hazardous working conditions and horrifying environmental contamination.

The U.S. is the only industrialized country that still allows export of computer parts to Third World countries for this `recycling'. Exporters obtain obsolete computers from thrift stores or collect them from businesses. According to Barbara Kyle, campaign coordinator for the Computer TakeBack Campaign, there's no independent certification system for computer recyclers to ensure that they recycle responsibly.

California's system

Each TV and cathode-ray computer monitor contains 4 - 8 pounds of lead. In a landfill such lead can enter local groundwater or streams. That's why in 2001 California banned the landfilling of CRTs. The subsequent Electronic Waste Recycling Act (SB 20), which set up a recycling system for CRTs, took effect on Jan.1 of this year. (As of July 1, it also covered plasma screens and liquid-crystal displays.)

Environmentalists and Sen. Byron Sher, who introduced SB 20, originally wanted producer takeback of electronics. But computer manufacturers claimed that producer takeback would hurt their business - although they comply with the takeback laws in Europe! (The U.S. has no federal policy on e-waste.) The manufacturers argued that producer takeback would add costs to new products, which would cause purchasers to buy computers out-of-state. California was also vulnerable to the lobbying of computer manufacturers located in the state.

In the resulting California compromise, purchasers of new TVs or monitors pay a $6 - $10 fee to the state. Independent recyclers then submit paperwork showing that they have recycled CRTs, and the state reimburses them for their costs. According to Kyle, recyclers have to meet a number of standards. In particular, they must demonstrate that any export of e-waste is done in accordance with U.S. and international law and only to countries that meet certain regulations.

Many used CRTs escape from this system. People who don't know about the law continue to dump electronics in household trash. Further, the law does not apply to CPUs, keyboards, power supplies, digital cameras, PDAs, pagers, and other electronic devices - even though they contain nearly the same chemicals as CRTs. (Some recyclers do accept these products as donations if they can be refurbished and resold).

The recycling process is not yet simple and comprehensible to the average resident. The San Jose Mercury News reported this May 5: "There's a daunting patchwork of 212 state-approved e-waste collectors out there - 25 in Santa Clara County - and nearly every one has a different policy for handling your trash. Some will take it off your hands for free; others will charge you $20 a tube. One local collector charges to take the monitor, but waives that fee if you throw in the rest of the old computer's system. Another charges piece by piece to collect the central processing unit, keyboards and mouse, but takes the monitor for free."

Even thrift stores do not necessarily recycle responsibly. Goodwill, whose mission is to provide jobs rather than make a profit, does recycle responsibly. (In Southern California, it resells about 10% and recycles about 90% of its computer donations.) The Salvation Army could not be reached for comment. The Out of the Closet administrative office in Southern California says that a state-authorized recycler handles its e-waste - but two OTC stores in the Bay Area said that they try to accept only saleable electronics, and that unsold ones go to the dump. Almost certainly, many small and independent thrift stores dump unsold electronics in the trash or sell them to exporters. Most probably don't know about the state law, and even if they did, would be reluctant to pay a state-authorized recycler $5 - $25 to take a CRT that they took in as a donation.

Cell phones

Assemblymembers Fran Pavley and Christine Kehoe sponsored a cell-phone-recycling bill that was signed by the governor in October 2004. This law is even weaker than SB 20, the CRT law. It merely requires cell-phone retailers, if they want to sell new devices in California, to have a system in place by July 1, 2006, to collect used cell phones for reuse, recycling or environmentally sound disposal. This system may consist of bins in retail stores, with the collected phones subsequently shipped to a private recycler. The entire burden of recycling is placed on the customer.

The Sierra Club has a cell-phone-recycling arrangement with Staples office-supply stores. Since 2003, Staples stores have collected used cell phones, PDAs, pagers, and rechargeable batteries in bins marked with the Sierra Club logo. Staples sends the e-waste to a licensed private recycler, who refurbishes the usable cell phones for sale in the Third World (where they will almost certainly be dumped). From these revenues the recycler subtracts the cost of responsibly recycling the unusable items. The net profits are split among the recycler, Staples, and the Sierra Club.

Economics of e-waste recycling

Despite California's e-waste laws, the incentive for dumping or sending electronics to Asia remain strong.

That's because the fees collected from new purchasers of CRTs in California are inadequate to cover the disassembly costs for collected obsolete CRTs. The fee went into effect January 2005, but Californians have a constantly growing backlog of hundreds of thousands of obsolete electronic devices purchased over the last 10 - 15 years. The state reimburses recyclers only for CRTs (48 cents per pound of CRT materials). Recyclers who accept other electronic devices, including toys, hard drives, and VCRs, must either refurbish and sell them, or try to cover their costs by selling the recovered materials.

Also, ethical recycling requires energy to transport, disassemble, and incinerate the electronics. It produces hazardous wastes that need to be segregated. As energy costs rise, recycling of these complicated chemical mixtures may become too expensive.

E-waste recycling legislation with a "producer takeback" provision is currently being considered in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York City, and is expected to be introduced this year in Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Washington.

Federal policy

Congress has begun holding hearings on the problem of e-waste. Proposed legislation, however, does not embrace producer takeback.

One bill (S. 510) would offer tax credits to companies and individuals who recycle. It would also require a study of the feasibility of establishing a national program that would preempt state recycling programs. A second bill (H.R. 425) would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to develop and administer a national electronic-waste-recycling program. A third bill (S. 1237) dealing with the transition to digital television and the auction of the spectrum would give tax credits for recycling of television sets.

Four congressmembers have formed a Congressional E-Waste Working Group, but its members mostly represent the electronics industry and include no environmental organizations.

WhatYouCanDo

For more information see www.computertakeback.com the web site of the Computer TakeBack Campaign, in which the Sierra Club is a partner. This site includes links to the reports mentioned above.

If you have electronic equipment to dispose of, working or not, see the web site of the National Technology Recycling Project at: www.ntrp.org for locations for donating it in an environmentally appropriate manner. (Some of these locations do charge a small fee.) You can also donate computers, computer peripherals, cell phones, and other home electronics, working or not, at no charge, at a Goodwill donation site or store in San Francisco, Marin, or San Mateo Counties. (Goodwill's locations in Alameda or Contra Costa Counties are not part of this computer-recycling program. For information about Goodwill's computer recycling and reuse program for businesses, see www.sfgoodwill.org/sfbacrp/ or call (888)4-GOODWILL.

Any other large but unsaleable electronic items should be brought to a city sanitation station. Cell phones can be dropped off at a larger number of locations, including Staples.

Danila Oder

Danila Oder is a writer on the Editorial Board of the Southern Sierran, the newsletter of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter. She first wrote about e-waste in 2002.