Regulations And Legislation Of E-Waste
What is the 'Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003'?
The Recycling Act of 2003 in California is SB20. It creates an advanced recycling fee model, which consumers pay into, the state manages, and the recyclers and collectors participate in. It's been a wild success story. California leads the world in electronic waste recycling, and it's a paradigm that's going to be followed over and over again. Minimally, the landfill band and the non-export nature of the legislation in California should be followed everywhere else.
What is the 'Electronic Industries Alliance' (EIA)?
The Electronics Industries Alliance (EIA) is a wonderful consortium of manufacturers that have gone together to trade best practices, and try to figure out how to recycle electronic waste appropriately, and create greener products. So the issue of hazardous materials getting into the landfills is going to be reduced as time goes on and these products evolve.
How many states enforce laws governing the safe disposal of CRT monitors?
Unfortunately, it's sad to say that very few states today enforce the laws for disposing of electronic waste appropriately. The three that come to mind right now are Massachusetts, Maine, and California. Other states are getting on board, but the process has been way too slow because we are liquidating the environment every day we dispose of these materials inappropriately. Whether we dispose of our electronics inappropriately in our own states or dump them to other countries like China, Mexico, Vietnam, or India, we're liquidating the environment every day if we don't create appropriate landfill bans on electronic waste.
What is the 'Basel Action Network' (BAN)?
The 'Basel Action Network', it's acronym is called BAN, is a wonderful watchdog group that helps promote appropriate electronic waste recycling and inappropriate disposal of electronic waste around the world. The inappropriate disposal of electronic waste not only harms the environment in those other countries or other states that it's dumped into, but also creates human rights violations when children are co-opted into the process of dismantling electronic waste in China, or India, or Vietnam, or Mexico. It therefore creates a dual-harm system, which the Basel Action Network has made great strides in helping to enforce that that doesn't happen, or less of it happens. The B-A-N is a great organization which is helping the movement go faster and move forward every day.
What is the legal loophole in the Basel Convention?
The legal loophole in the Basel Convention would be, that whole products can be dumped into other states or into other countries, and then be recycled inappropriately in those other countries because labor's cheaper. For instance, child labor's cheaper in China, Vietnam, or Mexico. Now you have children dismantling electronics or you have the processes and procedures, even if they're being done by adults, to be flawed and the hazardous materials getting into the people doing it. So the bottom line is, let's cut out dumping whole materials, whole products, into third world countries or emerging nations. Stop the export of whole products and just allow the export of commodities such as crushed glass, baled plastic, or aggregated metals. That's the best way to end the legal loophole that exists today.
What is the 'Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship'?
The Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship means that you're using credible, legitimate, audited, and downstream vendors after you're using good practices and procedures underneath your own roof. That basically is the essence of the pledge of true stewardship - doing the right thing under your roof and also using the correct, audited and improved downstream vendors for your commodities.
Why is the Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship necessary?
It's necessary because we all need a watermark. And we need some rules that we all can play by. If you don't have those rules, if you don't have a road map, there'll be absolute chaos in the industry. This creates guidelines that creates some sort of way to measure who is doing the right thing and who is not in this new and emerging and fast growing electronic waste recycling industry.
Does the Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship cost me more money to recycle?
The Pledge of True Stewardship should not cost any more money using the appropriate recycler as a post in any other recycler. It should be the same if not less. True and great recyclers were running transparent recycling facilities are not gelding the public at large.
What is the 'Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition'?
The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is another great organization that helped raise the awareness of illegal dumping here in California and other states of electronic waste, and the illegal dumping of our electronic waste into other countries. They were one of the great catalyst organizations who helped pass the landmark SB 20 law in 2003, here in California. They also are great champions of appropriate and good recycling practices, and they are also helping cut back on the illegal exporting and dumping of electronic waste around the entire world.
