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British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jul 28, 2007 04:34 PM
from the pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later dept.
from the pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later dept.
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.
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Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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I don't know about Moore (I've only seen "Roger and Me" and "9/11"), but many people have that same logic. I hear it all the time and when you try to explain to them that you really do pay for it from your tax dollars, they give this look that I can only explain by an example:
Go to a dairy farm and start talking to a cow. That's the look you get.
They are also the same folks who think that when they get a Federal Tax r
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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The one troubling thing is about how they plan on disp
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Yeah. Destroy it.
I still use an older Compaq laptop (333mhz, 128mb of Ram) as a web server for a not very busy local sports league. It runs an Ubuntu lamp install and has a phpbb forum and about 100 unique visitors per day. Speed of the machine is never an issue.
I also use another old Compaq (233mhz, 192mb of Ram) as a web browsing machine. It's also useful for updating the webserver as all my code I change is done via text edito
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
The collection stations then ship all this electronics to Calgary or Edmonton to be processed. (sometimes, if you work there or know someone there they will let you scavenge)Machines that are still viable are resold to computer dealers like me to be re-used.
Machines that are too old are stripped and the components are sent to the proper place to be recycled. Plastics get melted down, metals get smelted out etc. No, the system is not perfect, but it keeps the old tv's and computers out of our land fills.
Hopefully B.C. isn't re-inventing the wheel and they will have a similar system.
Parent
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Well, based on what at least one of TFAs said, they're not going to. They're just planning on handing everything over to a group of electronics manufacturers, who'll then ship everything to a smelter to be incinerated.
Good way to eliminate the secondary market for electronics.
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To an extent. They usually use about the same amount of power, but newer machines do far more with the power they do use.
For the previous poster - his website could probably be hosted on basic enterprise level machine with at least a thousand other small time websites. I wouldn't be surprised if you could host a hundred thousand with load balancing between five servers. Individ
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The best thing to do with an old PC is to try and find a new use for it (or sell it to someone who can use it). If disposal is free, it will, in many cases, become cheaper to simply let the government dispose of it.
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Doubling the benefits if I die by accident is a good example. It's utterly beyond me why I would want that, yet sure in hell it costs me money.
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It's called Michael Moore logic. If the government provides it, it's by definition "free".
No, you right-wing retard, it is called common sense. If the government or anyone else provides it for no charge, it is by definition free. Mentioning that a good or service is free to the person receiving it does not imply that the good or service materialised out of thin air or is not paid for at some other point along the chain.
If you stop me in the street and ask me for directions, and I help you out without asking for a fee in return, I am giving you a free service. It is irrelevant that you as
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Did you miss the entire discussion? I went into some detail about how not paying for something you receive means you've got it for free.
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No, you right-wing retard, it is called common sense. If the government or anyone else provides it for no charge, it is by definition free. Mentioning that a good or service is free to the person receiving it does not imply that the good or service materialised out of thin air or is not paid for at some other point along the chain.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory but frankly, with that kind of argument it seems you're more likely the retard than he.
You clearly have forgotten the purpose of government and the manner in which it is supposed to go about doing that purpose.
The basic premise of government is to form a collective which is empowered by "people" to run certain affairs on their behalf, right? And the manner of providing funding is typically through control of the land/air/sea/etc resources and of late - taxation and more ta
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The "out of thin air" definition o
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The basic premise of government is to form a collective which is empowered by "people" to run certain affairs on their behalf, right?
Indeed. Which makes it not a corporation taking money in strict exchange for products, but instead a very different public body that does public service with one hand, and takes taxes with the other in order to handle inflation. (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.)
And the manner of providing funding is typically through control of the land/air/sea/etc resources and of late - taxation and more taxation. That means that anything, ANYTHING for which tax moneys and government revenues were applied are paid services.
So, if you don't leave any rubbish outside, or if you don't use the streets much, the state lowers your taxes accordingly?
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it nicer to go to a place where you must fork over cash to do anything even after passing through the gate, or to go to an all expenses payed resort?
I know I would go with the latter. Sure, getting through the gate costs much more money, but once you're across, it is relaxing. You don't have to walk around clutching your wallet. You spend money at a much more consistent (manageable) rate.
Also, though this is more specific to taxes, (assuming it is a sliding scale, as it should be) that cost is rarely enough to cause a problem even if you have little money, but you still get the same services.
Unfortunately, the BC government completely sucks right now, so don't take these actions as any example of that in action. They lowered taxes, and to compensate for the "saved money" we now have to pay for many things that were previously payed for entirely via taxes. (It's a popular action amongst the right wing governments. Magically "cut taxes" as though they are magicians who conjure money out of thin air, then quietly incinerate every public program that the last government spent valuable time putting into place. Profit!).
Take a look at BC's parks and camp sites (before the BC "Liberals" got in). Through taxes, we got some really good quality services "for free". Sure, they had to be payed for through taxes, but after that, people could just go ahead and enjoy them.
No big ticket booth, no security perimeter, no worries about available money, no wallet clutching.
Someone could argue that taxes mean paying for services you don't use, but I disagree. I think that taxes are a lot like those "all expenses payed" resorts. The stuff provided, someone normally wouldn't bother paying for (or, thus doing), even though it is really great stuff.
On the other hand, if he has already payed for it, taking that next step is simple and painless. Stuff like that causes people to better appreciate the place they live, thus to stay healthy and to be content.
Believe me: It's great to be able to go outside without an overwhelming fear that "I do not have the money to be hurt".
Parent
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It's called Michael Moore logic. If the government provides it, it's by definition "free".
It'll be free to some people. People who can't afford new computers will get used, and then when it gets so old that it's completely unusable or it breaks, then they'll have something to do with it without spending money that they don't have. If I buy a $2000 computer from Dell I'm not going to notice $5 or $10 for recycling, so I'd rather pay it upfront than have to spend it later or push the cost onto some poor person or organization I donate it to later.
Of course, that would be great if they where
charging for free service??? (Score:2)
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.
not news (Score:5, Informative)
It could also soon be charged in Ontario:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/06/12/42
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Of course, whether it makes sense to do so will not matter to the Ontario government. What matters is it doesn't cost them anything, and it makes them look like they've done something for the environment.
Consider, for example, how quickly the Ontario passed a ban on incandescent lightbulbs after the idea was first raised in Australia.
- RG>
Nightmare for vendors (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Parent
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This fee is already charged in Alberta for the last couple of years. It was also introduced in Saskatchewan in February.
While quite true. Why not do a complete job and have the prison system take ALL garbage, sort it into recycle. Aluminum here, paper there, biodegradable here, electronics there in stead of sitting on their asses for release date.
And cut yet another form of taxation. GST+PST+EST is getting tax nuts. Almost 20% not including excise. As it IS about TAXES -- they want more of YOUR mone
wanted: universal translator (Score:2)
what's truly ever so head-scratching is this author's command of grammar.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, beautiful Trail, BC [metsoc.org], industrial jewel of the soot-and-arsenic laden mountains.
Not New (Score:4, Interesting)
How did they think it would be recycled? (Score:5, Informative)
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
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If it's profitable to obtain raw metals in this fashion, why do they need to charge a fee to do it?
You don't need to charge a fee to recycle aluminum cans. Well before recycling was widespread in the US, I remember hauling garbage bags full of empties down to a local recycling center, which then paid *us* for delivering valuable aluminum to them. If nobody's willing to pay you for your old
Burning in a smelter is stupid.... (Score:2)
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Lead is worth good money. When I toured the Trail smelter it had a lead side and a zinc side. I'm not sure how much mercury there is in the electronic scrap, but it should be recoverable. And if you can collect it, all these compact fluorescent lights need it to work. So that will recycle too.
California Has Done This (Score:4, Informative)
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/ [erecycle.org]
Why do they call it recycling.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why do they call it recycling.... (Score:4, Informative)
No, they're melted down and leeched into seperate metals.
Parent
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With a well-designed process you can get pretty good efficiencies out of the smelter and also keep emissions into the environment at a low level. With modern smokestack scrubbers and effluent recovery systems you can re-capture elements that you can turn around and sell in orde
Smelter != Incinerator (Score:2)
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.
Other Electronics? (Score:2)
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.
Just another "Fear Me!" article from the ignorant. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The rest is quite low density and, a side from a few hot spots, is quite spread out.
Even if they aren't covered by the program, or choose not to take advantage of it because of distance, etc, it won't be a significant impact.
Mod Parent Down (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Parent
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This is one of those cases of "lying with numbers".
It's quite possible to cover the vast majority of the people with so few stations - because most of BC is utterly empty
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Personally... I prefer:
At least as the proper definition... But that may just be me...
Nephilium...
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Dumbass.