Industry Closing In on E-Waste Financing Proposal

The industry, state and local agencies and environmental groups have worked more than 2 years to develop a national e-waste recycling system through the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI). “It’s getting close to an end here, because we have got our final package,” said Jason Linnell, EIA mgr.- environmental affairs. Once a proposal is nailed down, it will go to individual companies for formal approval, he said. The proposal will then be put before NEPSI. Any federal program would require congressional legislation.

The NEPSI talks broke off in March after cracks emerged in the industry alliance over the financing model. A group of mostly TV manufacturers along with IBM took the position a fee imposed on consumer purchases should finance recycling of all products. Others -- mostly computer majors such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell -- disagreed, saying the fees would never go away and would be mismanaged. They put their weight behind a system under which companies would be responsible for collecting and recycling their own products.

“All we have heard from them since March is we are making progress,” said Scott Cassel, dir. of the Mass.- based Product Stewardship Institute, which formulates regulatory and legislative policy for state and local govt. agencies. States aren’t going to wait for manufacturers to come together on a national system, he said: “As we believed all along, what’s driving a national system is multiple state legislative initiatives.” He said PSI, which represents states on NEPSI, had started working on the issue 4 years ago “with a hope that we can develop a national system and not have individual state legislation.” But “unfortunately,” he said, the manufacturers “have not seen it in their interest” to agree on a national system.

Linnell said the industry was aware of the time constraints in getting its act together, as state legislative sessions are due to resume soon: “We are trying to get it done as fast as we can, but we need to have buy-in from all the companies.” He said the industry discussions had dragged out because everyone on both sides of the fee issue had to be roped in.

Linnell declined to provide specifics of the latest financing proposal. He said the first proposal involved allowing companies that didn’t want a fee at the point of sale to deal with their own products. But retailers raised strong objections to having similar products with and without fees depending on the brand. Under a proposal sent to NEPSI in May, there would be a fee on all covered products but flexibility on how the funds are managed at the back-end. Companies that want to deal with their own products will get the money back, he said, but would have “defined responsibility for what you need to recycle with those funds.” As long as they meet set goals, they would have control over the money their products accounted for and would have flexibility in setting up a system. The final package is unlikely to reach NEPSI for “another month or so,” said Linnell.

State lawmakers still hope “something would come out” of NEPSI, but don’t have high expectations, said Adam Schafer, program dir. of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. Most states are moving forward with their own initiatives, without waiting for action at the federal level. Schafer said he expected to see action in Ore. and Wash., which already have set up study committees. E-waste will be a major issue at the NCEL meeting in Savannah, Ga., beginning Dec. 8, he added. Dinesh Kumar