States Push Makers' Role In Disposing of Electronic Waste

AaronParsons writes "An interesting NY Times article describes currently available programs for post-consumer electronics. One of the many interesting points in the article is that electronics manufacturers should be held responsible for recycling their products post-consumer: 'Maybe since they have some responsibility for the cleanup, it will motivate them to think about how you design for the environment and the commodity value at the end of the life.'"

Already in Europe(tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, this has been common in Europe for some years. Also, where I live, if your dispose of your electronics properly you get to pay less garbage collection tax.

Re:Every product needs this

[raju1kabir]

That's more or less how it works in Germany. It hasn't been perfect, but has resulted in less packaging and more use of recyclable components.

Re:This is a terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml

Here is often where that stuff ends up in. Some place in rural china with monitors stacked up into shear walls. Toxic levels in the water 190x the WHO limits and water has to be brought in. Burning plastic and pouring acid to extract trace amounts of gold. This isn't the only site out there either.

Re:This is a terrible idea

[Useful Wheat]

In Grand Junction, Colorado it is illegal to simply dump your electronics in the trash. You're required to pay a $50 processing fee for all old electronics. This includes computers, televisions, and basically anything larger than an iPod. $5-10 to dipose of your electronics with this other company is not a bad deal at all.

Re:How the?

[dunkelfalke]

Sorry, but you are talking bullshit.

I used to work for some waste management companies.
Recycling makes lot of sense and while it does create pollution, it creates much less pollution than producing new raw materials. This is especially true for all kinds of metal, paper, glas and more expensive forms of plastics (like polycarbonate).

Since the raw material supply is finite, recycling will return even more money in the future than it does now already - and 2009 technologies allow recycling to be pretty profitable in first place. Thus it makes sense to invest in recycling technologies now (or being caught with your trousers down in the future).