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09.06
Stakeholders Endorse Uniform National System of Electronics Recycling
By Barton REppert
Stakeholders including manufacturers, retailers,
recyclers and environmental organizations, whose views are presented
in a recently released Commerce Department report, agreed that a
uniform national system of electronics recycling is preferable to a
patchwork of differing state systems.
Unfortunately, stakeholders have not been able to
come to a consensus on the financing for a national system, said
the report, compiled by the Technology Administrations Office of
Technology Policy (OTP). The result is that states are
experimenting with a variety of financing systems from an advanced
recovery fee (ARF) paid by the consumer at the time of purchase to
producer responsibility in which manufacturers of televisions and
computer monitors are responsible for paying for the recycling.
In releasing the report on 18 July, Commerce Under
Secretary for Technology Robert Cresanti observed in a speech to a
Washington, D.C., meeting sponsored by the Institute of Scrap
Recycling Industries Inc., that recycling of electronic products
has become an issue for communities around the world as concerns
over waste management have grown.
More than 10 countries have laws on recycling
discarded electronics and other nations are currently developing
legislation, Cresanti noted. In the United States, five states have
banned the disposal of cathode ray tubes from television and
computer monitors in landfills, while four states have passed
statewide electronics recycling laws each with different
requirements for manufacturers, retailers, local government and
consumers.
How our electronics waste solutions are developed,
and who is involved in the decision process, will affect the
manufacture, marketing and business models of U.S. companies, the
top Commerce technology official said. Industry is now facing a
patchwork of international and state laws. Disparate requirements
can lead to uncertainties, inefficiencies and high compliance costs
for companies.
Cresanti emphasized that first and foremost, the
various stakeholders who participated in an OTP-conducted
roundtable discussion held in September 2004, and then responded to
a Federal Register request for comments agreed that they want to
strive for one uniform, national system rather than a patchwork of
differing state systems. Parties differed on how to achieve this,
with the choices being either through voluntary stakeholder
consensus, uniform state legislation or federal legislation.
Commenting on the report, Brad Allenby, a professor
of civil and environmental engineering at Arizona State University,
Tempe, and a senior member of the IEEE Computer Societys Technical
Committee on Electronics and the Environment (TCEE), said: By and
large I think its a very fair and responsible report, and its
encouraging that the administration is looking at this issue.
Overall, Allenby said in an interview with
IEEE-USA Todays Engineer Online, on the question of electronics
recycling, including bans or possible bans on use of certain
materials in manufacturing, I think its a good idea for the United
States, Europe and large producers like China, Korea, Taiwan
harmonize their requirements. Because otherwise you have the
potential for trade barriers that are unhelpful to either consumers
or manufacturers.
The 290-page Commerce Department report, Recycling
Technology Products: An Overview of E-Waste Policy Issues, does not
make recommendations in favor of one recycling system over another,
but instead summarizes stakeholders views and analyzes the range of
collection and financing systems for electronics recycling.
According to the report, stakeholder recommendations
with regard to electronics recycling also included:
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Embrace product stewardship as a goal: those in
the product lifecycle should share responsibility for reducing
the environmental impacts of products. Materials have a value
and that value should be captured, preserved, and returned for
use in commerce.
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Provide flexibility for local and regional
solutions in collection methods, such as using collection
incentive payments, not mandates or a centrally prescribed
collection process.
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Treat residential and commercial electronics
waste the same.
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Set environmentally sound management guidelines
for recycling such as EPAs guidelines for the Plug-In to
eCycling program and provide a system of auditing to ensure
that dismantlers and recyclers are evaluated against these
guidelines.
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Agree on one financing mechanism to apply
across the country.
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Establish procedures to oversee and enforce the
system to ensure fairness and uniform participation, regardless
of the financing system chosen.
-
Standardize product labeling requirements,
product literature requirements, information on packaging
requirements, and reporting requirements so producers face only
one set of requirements for compliance across the country.
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Include industry in the development of any
design standards or material bans, if they are part of any
legislation.
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Use the federal governments leverage as one of
the countrys largest information technology buyers to drive
design improvements, manufacturer participation in recycling
solutions, and end-of-life services.
Electronics recycling legislation which has been
introduced in Congress, although not yet enacted, includes a bill
sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jim Talent (R-Mo.) that
would provide an $8 tax incentive to companies that recycle
electronic devices and $15 to consumers for turning in a TV or
computer.
Growing mountains of e-waste are clogging our
nations landfills and posing great risks to Americans health and
to our natural environment, Wyden said in introducing the
legislation in March 2005. As technology improves and folks get
newer and faster computers, they need a safe and easy way to get rid
of their old machines. This legislation gives consumers, recyclers,
retailers and manufacturers alike incentives to recycle old
computers responsibly.
Also, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) has introduced
the National Computer Recycling Act (H.R. 1165), intended to promote
a national infrastructure for computer recycling. Under this
legislation, the program would be funded by assessing a fee of up to
$10 for all retail sales of individual desktop computers, monitors
and laptops.
Hearings on the electronics recycling issue have
been held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate
Environment Subcommittee on Superfund and Waste Management.
Allenby, who formerly served as ATTs vice president
responsible for handling environmental issues, told TE Online:
I would liked to have seen, and I would still like to see, a review
of the real risk posed by electronic waste. The assumption in the
[Commerce Department] report, and the assumption clearly in most of
the public dialogue, is that electronic waste is indeed hazardous.
And Im not sure thats true.
He added: I dont think anyone would argue that if
you can economically recycle these products, that it isnt worth
doing. That seems to me to be a slam dunk. I think the real question
is, if it is costly to recycle the products and costly not just in
terms of the fee to the manufacturer or the consumer, but in terms
of, for example, the effects of making electronic products more
expensive, in terms of effects on innovation, competitive effects,
those kind of things I dont know that anybody has really looked
at that balance in a non-ideological way.
TCEE held its most recent International Symposium on
Electronics and the Environment, and Electronics Recycling Summit,
in San Francisco, Calif., on 8-11 May 2006, in conjunction with the
International Association of Electronics Recyclers. The
technical conference included 15 sessions, with presentation of more
than 60 papers. The Summit track featured four sessions, including
several interactive forums with industry leaders.
We tried to put recycling into the context of the
evolution of electronic technology and what it means, for example,
for design teams who by and large dont connect with the recyclers,
Allenby said about the conference.
He added that TCEE recently has not adopted any
official policy statement with regard to electronics recycling. We
generally dont do policy statements on specific issues, in part
because the IEEE is such a large tent that its difficult to issue a
policy statement that reflects what we would consider a true IEEE
consensus, Allenby said.
Another IEEE organization that deals with
electronics recycling issues is the Technical Committee on Green
Electronics, Manufacturing, and Packaging (GEMP), a subunit of the IEEE
Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology Society. The
committee is chaired by Hansjorg Griese of the Fraunhofer Institute
for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Department of
Environmental Engineering, Berlin, Germany.
The scope of the GEMP technical committees
attention includes the reduction of hazardous materials, energy
consumption and material use, as well as the reuse of equipment and
reusable components of production wastes.
Since environmental issues of global dimensions,
the TC-GEMP supports the globalization of CPMT, the technical
committees Web site says, adding: Together with other IEEE
technical committees,
TC-GEMP will contribute to a sustainable development of
electronics.

Barton Reppert is a freelance
science and technology writer specializing in
S&T policy coverage. He previously worked for 18
years as a reporter and editor with The
Associated Press in Washington, New York and
Moscow.
Comments may
be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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