British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee 172
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.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 refund that they didn't pay taxes for that year.
Really, there are people out there who believe that! I thought it was just rhetoric from pundits, but it's true.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The one troubling thing is about how they plan on disposing of the waste. A smelter? He who smelter, dealter.
Re:not news (Score:2, Insightful)
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>
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
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 a consumer or a taxpayer are part of a system that has, for example, provided us with streets to talk about, or which has provided me with healthcare to be able to be there. It is also free even if I decide I will only grant these requests if other people have similarly helped me out.
If walk into a hospital and am treated without being asked for money, then this is free of charge for me, even though the doctors are paid, and even though I am part of the system that funds all such public benefits.
Now, if I tell you that I'll give you directions "for free" if you let me sell you the newspaper I'm holding, then I am bundling together two products so tightly that it is dishonest to call either of them "free". This is common (dishonest) practice in marketing, but not what we are talking about here.
All of this is elementary, and should only need to be explained to people learning English as a foreign language, and needing to know how what "free of charge" means. It is sad that some wankers deliberately abuse language either to sell products or to work against essential services being provided to the people.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 taxation. That means that anything, ANYTHING for which tax moneys and government revenues were applied are paid services. Garbage collection, road work or that trip to the hospital - as long as I've paid my taxes then I've paid for those services. Kinda reminds me of my cell phone plan - they charge me for service monthly but I'm always invoiced a month ahead.. That means they have my cash in hand for a month before it is applied to the services it was billed as. And if I use less time you can be sure they do not credit me but heaven help me if I should go over my air-time allowances .
And don't get me started about road and infrastructure. Canadian gas has 50% tax added to the price under laws which speak of road and highway maintenance and such but which conveniently allows for the cash to go into general coffers rather than a road-related account system.
Oh - I checked http//dictionary.com [slashdot.org] and the most closely related definitions to this thread, of the word "free":
(Not ordered)
1. exempt or released from something specified that controls, restrains, burdens, etc. (usually fol. by from or of): free from worry; free of taxes.
2. provided without, or not subject to, a charge or payment: free parking; a free sample.
3. given without consideration of a return or reward: a free offer of legal advice.
Hmm, so far we're not doing so well. It is common record that if you don't pay your taxes then hello jail cell, and since taxes are the primary source of funding for government projects - number 1 clearly does not apply.
Well, they want a service charge added to fund this above and beyond the basic taxes I already pay - so number 2 is out.
As for number 3 - when was the last time any forward-looking project was undertaken by government without the idea of winning votes? I can't recall any instance of that.
So I see nothing here but proof of the old adage, "ain't no such thing as a free lunch"..
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The "out of thin air" definition of free has no use whatsoever except when applied to the gullible. Since the medium of television is built on the premise that all viewers are gullible, we're exposed to that definition a lot more than logic justifies. Nevertheless, in any serious discussion, the participants all understand that free always comes with a price.
Once upon a time hauling crap out to the local landfill was free. Only it wasn't free. Free was just a handy synonym for externalization of cost onto society as a whole. You don't have to posit government as a delivery mechanism to point this out. Perhaps the society decides to go light on government and the cost is expressed in reduced life expectancy from drinking really crappy water. Name your poison. Oppressive taxation is but one small slice on the dart board.
I thought the original post was more on track than your response. In the old days, the ultimate cost of all that "free" dumping at the landfill was left as an exercise to the dumpers and local population. With this new program, it's entirely clear who is picking up the tab (the citizenry through the delivery mechanism of government). That does not amount to some magical slight-of-hand in the semantics of "free". In my books, it actually amounts to a clarification.
Some people might prefer the old situation where in the muddle of who was finally picking up the tab, it was possible that government wouldn't be it: ideology before clarity. I personally prefer the new situation. If anyone in the private sector feels strongly enough about putting the government out of this business, please step forward with a viable plan. Only if the mechanisms of government guarantee monopoly profits? Ah, I thought so.
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.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.