(SALT LAKE CITY) – The nation’s computer companies are urging states not to rush into legislation dealing with the glut of unwanted television and electronics. Rather, states should work with an existing group that is hammering out a compromise on how unused discarded computers can end up in a recycling bin and not in the bottom of a dump.
Marc PEARL, executive director of the Consumer Electronic Retailers Coalition, told state legislators this week that Dell, HP, Sony and the other major computer industry players are committed to consensus through the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) before the issue reaches the critical mass in state legislatures.
Instead of fighting 50 different lobbying fires and then dealing with 50 different sets of “e-cycling” rules, the industry is in the midst of a five-month internal battle on the best way to pay for a national program.
The internal negotiations are taking place as a part of NEPSI, a three-year-old group made up of 15 manufacturers, 12 states (Minnesota, Oregon, California and Massachusetts, for example) and 18 recycling-driven businesses. The group’s goal is to lead the way on the e-cycling debate by reaching a national consensus on this national problem.
At least 55 state bills dealing with recycling old computers have been sponsored across the nation. In Michigan, Rep. Chris KOLB’s (D-Ann Arbor) bill to ban television and computer screen tubes from landfills was left on the sidelines as Gov. Jennifer GRANHOLM signed the rest of a landfill package last year. The obvious problem was, if you ban the lead-based tubes from the dump, absent a state program, where are people expected to take them?
Doing the staff work for NEPSI is Catherine WILT, of the Center for Clean Products and Technologies at the University of Tennessee. She said the group is stuck on the financing question. The older companies want customers to pay an environmental fee when they buy their new computers, while the newer companies want to take care of the cost internally, somehow working the program’s cost into the final sticker price.
Once that’s figured out, the questions turn to where people are going to take their computers. Through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), some national chain retailers are doing a national take-back plan. Office Depot and Hewlett Packard, for example, are accepting one piece of electronic equipment a day until Labor Day. Staples stores in New England and Good Guys electronics in the Pacific Northwest are also doing pilot programs. The EPA is beginning to see competition among the national chains on take-back computers, which are then sent to the manufacturers that the retailers have agreements with. NEPSI and the states are turning up the heat on the manufacturers in the hope that more respond by making new computers that aren’t as environmentally harmful if buried underground.
The EPA and the federal government is encouraging “green” computer technology by pledging to buy only environmentally friendly equipment by the year 2006. The encouraging signs from the private sector haven’t kept the public sector from getting even more involved. North Carolina Rep. Joe HACKNEY tried unsuccessfully in his state to pass a recycling bill, and in the process did a thorough examination of what other states are doing. He saw:
• The California model, which starts with a ban on certain types of electronics made with heavy metals, a standard Europeans have been using for years. An environmental disposal fee is tacked onto any new computer with the money being spent on “free and convenient disposal of computers.” The manufacturers and counties are expected to issue reports to make sure the computers are ending up in a safe place.
• The Maine model is a producer responsibility approach that leans heavily on computer companies taking back their product. Problems arise when people buy their electronics over the Internet. Also, the state could have a problem in 2011, when it is committed to adopting all of the state’s “orphaned” computers, which are those produced by now-defunct companies.
• Nine states have “feel good” study and task force bills on the subject, which may mean reform is in the not-so-distant future.
• The “Ban It From the Landfill” approach is being pitched in 21 states, but Hackney went back to the point Senate Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee Chair Sen. Patty BIRKHOLZ (R-Saugatuck) always bring up: If they can’t stick it in the landfill, where are they going with it? He noted his home county passed a computer tube ban, but it also has a program to accept and recycle the product.
In the U.S. Congress, a tax credit bill that gives computer companies tax breaks for taking back no-longer-needed merchandise is floating around, as is another that creates the front-end consumer fee from the California model.
The four panelists speaking at the forum, “Where Do Old Models Go?” agreed that at some point, some type of federal legislation is needed as a backstop to the different programs being run at the state and local level.
Meanwhile, the EPA reports that 250 million computers will be obsolete in the next year, meaning a lot of junk electronics sitting in people’s garages and basements waiting to be discarded.
