Federal R&D Funds Sought for E-Waste Recycling, Green Design

With the February 2009 digital TV transition deadline looming, “millions of TVs and monitors with untold tons of lead” are headed for landfills, the Tennessee Democrat said. That waste stream includes mercury, cadmium and other toxins, he added. Despite 12 state laws and many producer take-back programs, Americans recycle only 10 to 15 percent of discarded devices, he said. “This is a problem of global proportions… Technology and innovation have as much a role in solving it as they did in its creation.”

Besides more emphasis on e-waste recycling, products should be designed in “in smarter ways,” Gordon said. “Focused R&D initiatives will be essential to help manufacturers of emerging technologies produce more environmentally friendly products while still meeting consumers’ needs,” he said. Rapid obsolescence ranks consumer electronics among the nation’s fastest growing waste streams, said ranking member Ralph Hall, R-Tex. The e-waste “dilemma” includes defining e-waste, its reuse, recycling and landfill disposal and exports, he said. Noting that the House recently passed the Green Chemistry Research and Development Act, Hall said that measure would fund research of green chemicals and products meant to keep harmful chemicals from the environment. “This certainly applies to the problems with e-waste,” he said.

Congress should support research into new uses for lead- based glass in CRTs and reuse of plastic in electronics using banned or restricted chemicals, said Renee St. Denis, Hewlett Packard director of recycling. Used electronics may be deemed hazardous under some readings of U.S. and state regulations, though they pose no risk to human health or the environment when properly stored and recycled, she said. A “hazardous” tag could make it “burdensome and costly” to collect, store, haul and recycle electronics, St. Denis said. Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency should work to reform these regulations to foster recycling, she added.

Responding to Laura Richardson, D-Calif, St. Denis called California’s electronics recycling system inefficient. State administrators want to raise the recycling fee levied on new products to as much as $30 from today’s $10, she said. That would burden consumers by making them pay for earlier buyers’ waste, she said. Companies’ direct involvement in collection and recycling makes a more efficient system, she added.

It’s essential to preempt state e-waste laws for any U.S. law to succeed, said Sony General Counsel Michael Williams. Numerous, sometimes conflicting, state and local laws create inefficiencies that prevent “any economies of scale,” he said. Sony backs individual producer responsibility for recycling, but thinks other interested parties, especially retailers, must play an active role in collection, he said.

The Electronics TakeBack Coalition wants a federal e- waste producer responsibility law at least as strong as state laws and marked by goals and timelines for industry, Chairman Ted Smith said. Congress should ban export of toxic e-waste to developing countries because states can’t do it, he said. The recycling industry opposes restrictions on e-waste exports on grounds that they have a “commodity value,” he said. “We believe that if it’s toxic, it’s toxic whether it has value or not, and it should be controlled to be sure that it isn’t poisoning people elsewhere in the world.” Industry should be pushed to embrace “green engineering,” he said.