Senate Panel Looks At E-Waste

Committee Chmn. Thune (R-S.D.) said Americans have 2 billion electronics products -- 24 per household. Burgeoning e-waste has led to a patchwork of state and local laws and rules, he said. His panel wants to assess their impact on the U.S. economy and industrial competitiveness. Commending Cal. for taking the lead on the problem, Boxer called e-waste a “silent problem” demanding a bipartisan solution. Jeffords (I-Vt.) said varying state laws and voluntary industry efforts cannot meet the “staggering volume” of e-waste. He endorsed a national program. The central question is how to pay for it, he added.

Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.) -- who with Sen. Talent (R-Mo.) has introduced legislation to offer tax credits for e- cycling -- said the measure would cost about $400 million a year. But Boxer said budget deficits make that money hard to come by. Contrary to the belief that consumers will reject any fee, she said, they would accept a “dedicated” recycling fee of about $2 a product. Proceeds from that, plus tax credits, could encourage creation of a recycling infrastructure. She said Congress could work on such a proposal if Wyden and Talent were open to it. Talent said he doesn’t want to rule anything out. If consumers had access to a recycling infrastructure, they would be more open to a fee, he said. But the question is how to get the system started, he added. Rep. Thompson (D-Cal.), who has introduced a fee-based e-waste bill, called for not just bipartisan but bicameral efforts on the issue.

Underlining the need for a national financing system for recycling used electronics, the Govt. Accountability Office (GAO) said such a system was critical to making recycling and reuse “sufficiently inexpensive and convenient” for consumers. Discussing the preliminary findings of an ongoing GAO e-waste study, Dir.-Natural Resources and Environment John Stephenson said most of the players believe an advanced recycling fee (ARF) levied on the product at the time of purchase, extended producer responsibility (EPR), or a hybrid should be adopted nationally. He pointed out that the EPA-sponsored dialog, the National Electronics Products Initiative (NEPSI), had failed to reach agreement on a uniform, national financing system despite years of meetings.

The GAO also found that more than 100 million computers, monitors and TVs become obsolete yearly and the number is growing, Stephenson said. Most used electronics are stored, he added. He said the study has also found that economic and regulatory factors inhibit recycling and reuse of used electronics. Consumers generally have to pay fees and drop off the products at often inconvenient locations, he said. In addition, federal regulatory requirements provide little incentive for environmentally friendly management of electronics, he added. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the governing statute, regulates disposal practices of large generators of hazardous waste including e-waste but exempts individuals and households, he said. Because of that, 4 states -- Cal., Me., Mass. and Minn. -- have landfill bans on electronics. The GAO has found that such bans have contributed to more recycling in those states.

With 3 states having enacted “very disparate” e-waste laws and many others weighing legislation, industry is concerned such regulations will prove “costly, inefficient and perplexing,” said EIA Dir.-Environmental Affairs Richard Goss. “There clearly is a role for the federal government to play in bringing national consistency to this emerging field.” Steps the federal govt. should take, he said, include: (1) Establishing consistent regulatory definitions of key terms and strictly define scope of covered products. (2) Considering creation of a “flexible” 3rd-party organization to help with data reporting, compliance and financing. (3) Ensuring broad consistency in labeling, product information and regulatory reporting requirements. He said EIA members were on target to comply with the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive that takes effect next July. Since electronic products are manufactured for global sale and distribution, he said, U.S. consumers will have “broad access” to products that comply with the new EU requirements.

CE retailers believe producer responsibility is the “most fair, least burdensome and most easily manageable” model, said Best Buy Senior Vp Michael Vitelli, who testified on behalf of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC). Best Buy and many other retailers and manufacturers have been taking part in voluntary take-back and recycling programs, he said, but “we all realize that voluntary programs” can’t fully “handle or solve” the problem. “CERC believes a comprehensive nationwide approach to the management of electronics is the ultimate solution.” A successful national program can be established without imposing fees at the point of sale, creating a new complex administrative structure or imposing requirements that discourage innovation, he said.

Calling for a legislative approach that would make producers responsible for their products, Sheila Davis, exec. dir. of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), said “partial fixes” like tax breaks or a recycling fee on consumers won’t solve the problem. Because there isn’t a market for recycling e-waste in the U.S., 50-80% of the e- waste collected for recycling is exported to Asian countries that have no resources to handle hazardous materials they contain, she added. If manufacturers are held responsible for taking back their used products, she said, they will have incentive to innovate, redesign and use less toxic materials, so recycling will be easier and cheaper.

Minn. has considered legislation since 2002, but differences within the industry over a financing system that prevented a national solution emerging at NEPSI also stymied passage of a state program, said Garth Hickle of Minn. Pollution Control Agency. He said any national solution should: (1) Make all players, including manufacturers, retailers and local govts., to share responsibility for funding and operating a program. (2) Establish a framework that provides for addition or deletion of products as technology and consumer habits evolve. (3) Adopt performance standards and mechanisms for evaluating progress.