Multiple state laws confuse electronics recycling

A "patchwork" of state laws make it difficult for electronics manufacturers to comply with e-recycling laws, speakers at a CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) forum said Monday.

Four states -- California, Maine, Maryland, and Washington -- now have e-recycling requirements, and more than 25 are considering laws this year, said Parker Brugge, the CEA's senior director and environmental counsel. Realistically, between one and five states could pass new e-recycling laws in 2007, he said.

CEA wants a national e-recycling law, Brugge said. "The burden of dealing with all the state e-waste laws is growing," he added.

The four current state laws are significantly different from each other, said Jason Linnell, executive director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling. Each state has a different list of what products must be recycled, and they take different approaches to recovering the cost of recycling, he said. For example, California charges consumers up front when the products are purchased, while the other three states have programs in place to charge manufacturers.

In addition, Washington state, whose program goes into effect in 2009, will charge the recycling fees to the owner of the products' brand name instead of the actual manufacturer in the cases in which they are different, said Walter Alcorn of environmental consultant Alcorn Consulting.

Washington's program also sets a minimum recycling amount for each brand owner or manufacturer, and charges them extra if they fail to meet the goal. Most of the extra money paid by underperforming manufacturers then goes to manufacturers that exceeded their recycling target, Linnell said.

Washington's "harsh" approach puts manufacturers in competition with each other, Alcorn said.

Maine's program covers only household electronics. Businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and medical practices are exempted from its recycling program. Washington's program defines a small group of users that are required to recycle: households, charities, school districts, small businesses, and small government agencies.

"If you're trying to comply with the programs, you have to really pay attention," Alcorn. "They're all different."

The separate state programs also deal differently with "orphaned" electronics -- those products that cannot be traced back to a manufacturer either because it was a "white box" product or the manufacturer is out of business. Maine attempts to track down manufacturers but has more than 600 brands on its orphans list, Linnell said.

Maine's law requires only those manufacturers that contribute more than 1 percent of the e-waste to pay for orphaned electronics, he said. As of now, only 31 manufacturers are forced to pay, he said.

Despite some confusion about the programs, they are growing, Linnell added. California's program, the oldest, collected 65 million pounds of e-waste in 2005 and 125 million pounds in 2006, or about 3.4 pounds per person. But based on purchasing patterns, consumers should recycle about 10 pounds of electronics per year, he said.

"We've got a long way to go," Linnell said. "It really is the tip of the iceberg here."

CEA's Brugge called for a national law that would split the cost between manufacturers, retailers and others. "CEA's position is it should be a shared responsibility," he said. "It shouldn't just be manufacturers."