Growth of E-Waste May Lead to National 'E-Fee'

jcatcw writes "A bill in Congress would add a recycling charge to the cost of laptop PCs, computer monitors, televisions and some other electronic devices, according to a story at Computerworld. The effort to control what's called e-waste could lead to a national 'e-fee' that would be paid just like a sales tax. Nationwide the cost could amount to $300 million per year. Already, California, Washington, Maryland and Maine have approved electronics recycling laws, and another 21 states plus Puerto Rico, are considering them."

Agreed

[UbuntuDupe]

E-waste has been a big problem. I like what Microsoft did, with converting their e-trash bins into e-recycle bins. Thought it would be nice, *cough cough* if they made the "bright idea" lightbulb in MS Word a CFL.

You gotta think, we just use and use all these 1's and 0's, but no one realizes that their deletion increases the entropy of the universe.

Why bother?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

When I've got a PC that crashes and burns, I strip out any useful parts and put it by the curb. Some idiot will always take the thing home thinking it might work.

In that case

[physicsboy500]

I'll just have to dump it in the e-river!

Re:And that....

[Tackhead]

> That would mean that we can just leave them anywhere, right?
>
> We already pay for removal when it works.... Well, I'll just open my truckbed with all these computer junk parts and gun it. Thats what road crews are for, right?

Naw. Y'see, the last time someone figured he'd rather than make two little piles of garbage...

Sing it with me the next time it comes 'round on the guitar. [slashdot.org]

Proposal

[kahrytan]

Or we can just gather up all our trash into giant garbage ball and shoot it into space. Then we let the people in the year 3000 worry about our trash.

Re:Windows

[elrous0]

it would be fair to tax the source of the problem: poorly programmed operating systems, like Windows.

If we could put that tax revenue back into alternative fuels, find a way to tap the energy from Apple users' excess smugness, and achieve a 10% reduction in the energy needed to install Linux; we could go carbon neutral in no time!

-Eric

Pffff

[Rorschach1]

REAL geeks don't need e-waste recycling - they just hold on to their stuff until the Computer History Museum offers to haul it away.

(Ok, so I'd still be holding on to the VAX, but with my girlfriend moving in there just wasn't room for both. It was a tough choice.)

E waste

[KevinColyer]

My goodness, does this mean I will have to pay for all the E-mail I delete now???????