Despite significant quantities of lead, mercury, cadmi-

um, and other hazardous substances in computers and

television sets, large quantities of electronic waste are ending

up in the nation’s landfills or storage. According to the

EPA, electronic waste may comprise as much as 5% of the

nation’s municipal solid waste stream. As the equipment

piles up in landfills, so does the environmental risk. Some

experts believe that one billion pounds of lead from com-

puters and other electronic machinery will enter the waste

stream in the next decade, posing what many believe is a

serious threat of toxic runoff. Although the federal

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act prohibits large

companies from shipping their old computer monitors to

landfills, there is nothing to stop the vast majority of indi-

viduals and many small businesses from simply putting

their outdated electronic equipment out with the rest of the

trash. Furthermore, people seldom have any incentive to do

otherwise—usually only disincentives. Environmentally

conscious owners who want to do the right thing in dis-

posing of their outdated electronics usually must reach

into their own pockets to make sure that these machines

either find new homes or are recycled properly.

Chris

toph

er G

. Reu

ther

/EHP

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Spheres of Influence

When faced with the mounting tide of cast-off and potentially toxic computers and other electronic products in the

United States, most would agree that it is a problem in need of a solution. But as industry, government, and environmental

organizations debate how best to fashion a sensible response to this new threat, one question looms large: Who should pay?

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Spheres of Influence • Who Pays for e-Junk?

As the piles of electronic waste contin-ue to mount, a growing chorus of voiceshas arisen to call for reform. “It’s reachingcrisis proportions,” says Ted Smith, execu-tive director of the Silicon Valley ToxicsCoalition (SVTC), a nongovernmentalorganization based in San Jose, California.“The result has been an emerging move-ment and a synergy of initiatives aroundthe country.”

In California, the SVTC has joinedforces with several other groups to mount acampaign to bring attention to the problemof electronic waste. Besides looking at theenvironmental dangers, the group hasexamined the costs associated withmanaging electronic waste. In a reportreleased last year titled Poison PCs/ToxicTVs, the group estimated that even ifrecycling rates were to double fromcurrent levels, the total cost of manag-ing the waste would range from $25million to $42 million annually.Adding an estimated $500 million forcleanup of electronic waste already inlandfills, and the price tag for e-wastemanagement in California alone in thenext 5 years could exceed $1 billion.

Electronic Hot PotatoOnly two states in the nation,Massachusetts and California, havebanned cathode ray tubes (CRTs)from landfills. But according toSmith, electronics recycling is mostlya patchwork. Although large com-mercial customers typically arrangevarious collection schemes for outdatedequipment, little is known aboutwhether or not they are actually recy-cled. Individuals wanting to properlydispose of a home computer have fewoptions. And those that exist typicallycome with a price tag of $10 to $30 perunit. Meanwhile, the financial burden forhandling the mounting flow of electronicwaste is falling on financially strappedlocal governments that often don’t havethe money to do it.

As local governments around thenation have seen this new waste-disposalproblem emerging, they have begun toraise red flags. Michael Alexander, a seniorresearch associate with the NationalRecycling Coalition of Alexandria,Virginia, points out, “The question beingraised everywhere is: Should local govern-ment be straddled with this cost? Andshouldn’t manufacturers be involved? Thequestion of manufacturer responsibility isnow coming to the forefront.”

Following Massachusetts’s 2000 ban onCRTs from the state’s landfills and com-bustion facilities, the state’s municipalities

began calling for manufacturers to providepart of the financial answer. Scott Cassel,former director of waste policy and plan-ning for the Massachusetts ExecutiveOffice of Environmental Affairs, who nowheads the Products Stewardship Institute atthe University of Massachusetts at Lowell,says that about 30 Massachusetts munici-palities have passed resolutions calling formanufacturers to be responsible for takingback their products that have reached theends of their life spans. Similar municipalresolutions, he says, are emerging aroundthe country.

Today, Cassel represents some 20 statesand 24 local agencies in a national effort,the National Electronics ProductStewardship Initiative (NEPSI), that is try-ing to come up with an answer for what anational electronics recycling systemshould look like, including development ofa “viable financing mechanism.” NEPSI,which includes stakeholders from govern-ment, manufacturers, retailers, recyclers,and environmental organizations, has helda series of meetings and intends to have afinal recommendation ready by this fall.

By most accounts, NEPSI will not becalling for any sort of large-scale, tax-fundedgovernmental response. Instead, accordingto people involved in those discussions, themodel they’re looking at is one in which allthe stakeholders, including industry, willhave a role in how electronic waste shouldbe managed. And the funding device thatapparently is drawing the most attention is

the front-end fee, a set amount that con-sumers would pay as part of the cost of newproducts. That money would be placed in afund that would finance the safe recyclingand disposal of electronic products.

“The basic question we’re trying toanswer is how to allocate the costs fairly,”says Clare Lindsay, project director of theU.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s(EPA) Extended Product Responsibilityproject in the Office of Solid Waste andone of the NEPSI participants. One of thedevelopments influencing the discussions,she says, has been the steps taken in

Europe to place strong responsibilityfor electronics recycling in the handsof manufacturers. In 2000, theEuropean Union proposed the WasteElectrical and Electronic Equipmentdirective that requires manufacturersto be responsible for recovering andrecycling 60–80% of electronicequipment by 2006. A second direc-tive called the Restriction onHazardous Substances would phaseout the use of various chemicals inelectronic products sold in Europe by2008. Both proposals are expected tobe passed within the next 2 years.American industry is deeply concernedby the European actions, says Lindsay.“A lot of [U.S.] products are designedfor the world market, and they’ve gotto meet the toughest standards.”

An Industrial ResponseWhether or not international pres-sure is the primary cause, Lindsaysays that in the United States, “indus-try is taking steps to show that they’reserious about doing the right thing.”

The Electronic IndustriesAlliance (EIA), a high-tech manufacturers’trade organization based in Arlington,Virginia, that represents 4,300 membercompanies, has been very active in thenational process to develop an electron-ics-recycling model. The EIA not onlyrepresents industry stakeholders in theNEPSI dialogue but also has embarkedon a 1-year recycling project that it hopeswill generate data useful in developingideas for an effective national electronics-recycling plan. The EIA, in conjunctionwith a group of electronics manufacturers,awarded grants last October for recyclingprojects of the EPA’s Region III, the stateof Florida, and the Northeast RecyclingCouncil.

Industry’s position is that it wants tohave a strong hand in electronics recycling,but in a voluntary capacity. As EIA spokes-woman Kerry Fennelly says, “We believein a shared-responsibility model.”

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Phot

oDisc

In fact, electronics manufacturers andretailers have been taking more and moresteps to promote the recycling of the prod-ucts they sell. Over a 3-month period in1999, the Minnesota Office ofEnvironmental Assistance (OEA) manageda project that included the participation ofSony Electronics, Panasonic, theAmerican Plastics Council, and the WasteManagement-Asset Recovery Group toprovide statewide electronics recyclingopportunities and measure the mar-ketability of the products collected.According to OEA senior policy analystMaureen Hickman, the effort was the firstlarge-scale, multi-stakeholder project todivert used electronic products frommunicipal waste. The project includedone designated recycling company, WasteManagement-Asset Recovery Group,which collected the material and broke itdown. The revenue from sale of recoveredmaterial totaled $43,000. The total costof the project was $135,000.

The outcome of the project providedseveral useful lessons, Hickman says. Forinstance, they found that recycling oldCRT glass into new CRT glass is lessexpensive than smelting it down to recoverthe lead. They also found that the publicwas far more responsive than expected.“Each partner estimated that there wouldbe about 300 tons collected,” Hickmansays. “In the end, the figure was 575 tons.”

In addition to providing a means ofmeasuring marketability of recycled prod-ucts, another purpose of the project wasto study how best to collect electronicproducts. Various methods were exam-ined—curbside pickups, single-day andmultiple-day events—and according toHickman, the most successful method wasretail drop-off, which resulted in thelargest collections and the lowest cost.Although it wasn’t involved in retail col-lections during the pilot project in 1999,the Minneapolis-based electronics retailerBest Buy has subsequently launched anationwide electronics-recovery program.According to Tricia Conroy, a principal inthe Minneapolis environmental consultingfirm e4 Partners, which works with BestBuy, the retailer completed its first phaseof electronics collections last fall, with 10events in seven states, with a tally of 128tons of electronics collected from 2,800participants. For collection, Best Buy usesthree recycling companies which sendtheir own people to the Best Buy sites toreceive the equipment. Generally, saysConroy, people are charged $10 for com-puter monitors and $15 for television sets,whereas other equipment is accepted forfree. She says Best Buy is planning to

greatly expand its program this year to atleast 20 events. Meanwhile, Sony hasembarked on a plan in Minnesota to payfor recycling any of its products collectedin the state.

Nationwide, other manufacturers, suchas Hewlett Packard and IBM, are offeringvoluntary takebacks—but as critics pointout, there is little incentive other thanenvironmental altruism for customers totake advantage of these offers. They mustproperly package their old equipment forshipping and pay a fee—$29.99 for IBMand amounts ranging from $9 to $30 percomponent plus a $4 service charge forHewlett Packard. Another national retailer,Staples, held a 2-day event in February totake in used computer equipment, offer-ing a $100 credit on the purchase of anynew Pentium IV computer to people whowanted to “trade in” a complete system.Staples had an arrangement with a philan-thropic organization, Gifts in KindInternational, which seeks to providecomputers to needy organizations. Theagreement further stipulated that theequipment that couldn’t be reused beproperly recycled.

Many groups are pushing for greaterindustry responsibility in paying for elec-tronics recycling. Last year, the SVTClaunched a campaign called “ElectronicsTake It Back!” which would make manu-facturers responsible for what happens totheir products that become obsolete. SaysHickman, who is also part of the NEPSIgroup, “We’d like to see the cost of recy-cling internalized into the cost of theproduct.”

Collecting IdeasQuestions remain about how built-inrecycling fees would best be administered.“I don’t think that government wants tobe responsible for those funds,” saysLindsay. And industry is reluctant to be incharge of them because whenever compa-nies talk about prearranged prices, theyrun the risk of price-fixing allegations andantitrust violations.

Hickman says that one idea receivingserious consideration would be to use thefunding from the built-in fee (no matterwho administers it) to provide “a certainbase level of collection” for municipalitiesaround the United States. Then, beyondthat, a town or city might decide to usetax money to provide further service suchas curbside pickup. In fact, some are pro-viding it now. One of the oldest suchprograms in the country is in HennepinCounty, Minnesota, where Minneapolisis located. The program there has beencollecting used electronic products since

1992. Since its inception, that programhas increased its annual collections from11 tons to some 900 tons. HennepinCounty provides several drop-off points,and in 1997 it began curbside pickup inthe city of Minneapolis, where residentscan put out their old equipment on spec-ified days. The waste goes to a nonprofitorganization that trains people in how tobreak it down. The glass and some othermaterials go to a smelter who is paid toto take it. Plastics and wood are shippedto a trash-to-energy facility operated byNorthern States Power Co. Hazardousmaterials are disposed of as state and fed-eral regulations require. The program isdiverting a large mass of electronic wasteout of the waste stream, but it is doing soat a cost that would make many govern-mental entities balk: this year it’s expectedto cost taxpayers in that county about $1million.

Cassel believes that a national electronicsrecycling funding system would open upnew opportunities for entrepreneurs. WhenMassachusetts made shipping CRTs tolandfills illegal in 2000, it contracted withone specialized recycling company,ElectroniCycle, Inc., located in Gardner,Massachusetts, as the designated state recy-cler. As the designated contractor,ElectroniCycle was contractually boundto seek the highest use of the products itreceives—meaning repair and reuse is thefirst priority. According to RobinIngenthron of ElectroniCycle, the com-pany recycled six million pounds of elec-tronic material in 2001. Five percent of itwas tested and reused or resold in theUnited States, including about $100,000worth of refurbished televisions placed inGoodwill and Salvation Army stores.Another 20–25% was reparable, he says,“but we didn’t have a market for it here”because even though the equipment works,it’s outdated. ElectroniCycle has been ship-ping outdated but usable products to othercountries, such as India, where “the techsare not as picky.”

As the volume of electronic waste con-tinues to grow, answers on what to doabout it grow increasingly necessary.Some state and local governments aredemonstrating leadership on the issue,and the electronics industry is showingthat it’s willing to be part of an effectiveanswer. The NEPSI hopes to have aworkable proposal—agreeable to all stake-holders—on the table soon. This wouldbe a good start. Failure to act now willonly increase the price that users—andthe environment—will pay in the future.

Richard Dahl

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