LITTLE ROCK — Looking through Arkansas’ “State of Recycling” reports dating back to 2002 shows just how far electronics recycling has come.
They also reveal the lawmakers’ reasoning behind a bill, proposed in the House of Representatives last week, that aims to keep electronics out of landfills.
The 2002 report doesn’teven have a category for electronics. The 2003 report only lists computers. In 2004, when the state began in earnest to encourage recycling of electronics, the category was “computers/electronics,” and 954 tons of what’s now referred to as “e-waste” was recycled.
That’s a far cry from 2010 when the state recycled 8,245 tons of electronics, according to the State of Recyclingreport, released regularly by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
“If the bill is passed, the first thing it would do is keep mercury, cadmium and lead out of our landfills,” said Rep. Kathy Webb, D-Little Rock, who sponsored House Bill 1405. Older televisions and monitors often used the toxic substances, which could leak and contaminate soil and groundwater, accordingto the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The legislation would require manufacturers to either pay a fee to the state or provide free recycling to consumers, a common practice in other states.
“It will give all consumers an opportunity to more easily recycle their electronic equipment,” Webb said. “And finally, it will provide a permanent funding source forthe recycling of electronic waste in the state.”
In 2007, the Legislature passed Act 512, which called for the state’s 18 regional waste-management districts to come up with a plan for recycling electronics and keeping them out of landfills.
Act 512 also provided partial funding for recycling programs. The law allowed the districts to use money fromthe landfill post-closure trust fund. This money is generated from a $1-per-ton dumping fee. As long as the fund has a balance of $25 million, any money left can be used for recycling programs.
The trust fund reached $25 million in 2009, according to Carol Bevis, the deputy director of the Pulaski County Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District.
“Act 512 actually enabled us to establish our infrastructure so that we are able to set up statewide electronics collections,” Bevis said. “We now have drop-off centers across the state and have been able to purchase cargo trailers and tractor-trailers, the large items needed to carry on an electronics collection.”
Bevis said HB1405 is based on similar laws in 22 other states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri, where manufacturers are the hub of electronics-recycling operations.
The Arkansas legislation would require manufacturers selling certain electronics toregister with the department by Jan. 1, 2012, said Cecillea Pond-Mayo, a spokesman for the Environmental Department.
“Manufacturers can then either implement a recovery plan or pay a fee of 30 cents per pound for every covered electronic device sold in Arkansas. If manufacturers submit a recovery plan, they must provide consumers with a convenient way to return the device at no cost,” Pond-Mayo said. “Should they choose to pay the fee, the funds would be distributed to solid-waste districts to cover their direct cost of managing the e-waste collection program.”
Pond-Mayo said this option was added because many electronics retailers or manufacturers already have programs that allow consumers to take in used devices for free recycling.
Bevis said that if HB1405 is passed, it will do away with Act 512 after a year and make life easier for many.
“The $1-per-ton charge at landfills will drop off, and businesses will no longer have to pay that,” she said. “It will make electronics recycling free to everyone in the state. Right now, we’re basically setup only for household electronics. The only time we can help businesses, churches, schools or nonprofits is during our special collections twice a year. The rest of the time, they’re on their own. They have to load it and pay to transport it.”
Transportation takes up the bulk of solid-waste districts’ recycling money, Bevis said. For example, Pulaski County spends $650 per tractor-trailer to ship e-waste to the Texarkana, Texas, branch of UNICOR Federal Prison Industries Inc. There, inmates process scraps, stripping them of any valuable materials.
Bevis said Pulaski County typically ships about two trailers per week, but during special collections they send between 20 and 22 trailers over two days.
The bill also would cut down on transportation costs and create jobs in the state, Bevis said.
“If 1405 passes, processors will come here and will not have to go [to Texarkana] for processing,” she said. “It will make life so much easier and make it affordable for Arkansas to be an environmentally friendly state. It’s going to make us look good all acrossthe country.”
While such legislation may make things easier for states, an electronics-industry expert said Friday that life would be easier for the industry if the federal government passed a national law.
“We would prefer a national program to dozens of statespecific programs and with that in mind we’re moving forward to do so voluntarily,” said Walter Alcorn, vice president of environmental affairs for the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade group of 2,000 companies in the industry.
Alcorn noted that he could not speak specifically about Arkansas’ proposed law because he had not studied it.
“We strongly support more recycling of used electronics, and we are actively engaged in recycling electronics,” he said. “Across the country, our industry provides more than 5,000 collection locations for consumers, including many in Arkansas.”
He didn’t have a specific number of industry-provided drop-off sites in Arkansas; however, he said that Best Buy is a member of the association and that every store takes ewaste for recycling.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/24/2011