Whose Burden is it to Recycle Computers? 553
bostons asks: "California places the financial burden of dealing with the electronic waste on consumers, charging a $6 to $10 disposal fee on every computer and television purchased. Maine puts the onus on manufacturers, demanding they pay the full cost of recycling their computers or televisions and pick up a share of the recycling tab for products of unknown origin. Starting next year, Maryland will require manufacturers to offer free computer take-back programs or pay the state a fee. Which do you think is the most effective and appropriate option?"
Prepaid (Score:3, Interesting)
This extra cost is likely to go unnoticed because a single CPU/RAM/HDD price drop can easily cover that amount.
One common problem with prepaid tax (like petrol) is they took the money, used it on something else, and turned around to say they don't have enough money for roading/accident management.
Hence it's important for the authority to not only impose the tax, but also acknowledge it, so that consumers can simply put the computer/TV out on the street for collection and the authority must fulfill its duty to dispose them appropriately.
Equivalent (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Natalie's Restaurant (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have the full version?
Re:Free market burden on disposal (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of beverage containers, it makes sense to collect and refund a deposit from the consumer, because the choice point occurs at the moment the container becomes empty. The incentive works because it's possible for a consumer to get into a pattern of thinking that the cans have enough value to be worth collecting.
In the case of recyclable packaging, on the other hand, the consumer is not involved in the packaging decision, but is already effective in separating the package from the product. So passing costs to the consumer exerts no incentive. But the retailer is involved, because the system can only work if retailers accept packaging to be recycled.
The challenge for electronics disposal is different again, because it's intimately related to product design. There would be little point in collecting electronics only to produce landfill in a different place. Therefore the incentive has to be applied where it will influence design most directly, and it's a hard problem.
But similar programs have become very successful for building materials. Awards and rewards for "green" designs help architects and builders stand out from the competition, and they have helped to seed an entire secondary industry in recycled materials. It works because there are strong economic advantages to the reuse of certain materials such as clear timbers.
Whether we can achieve a similar effect with electronics components is hard to predict. As long as designs keep becoming obsolete, the value of a component is no more than the value of its raw materials less the cost of extracting them.
For consumers, oil is easy to get rid of... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't take it AutoZone or Checker, can't take it to a gas station...
I went to a garage sale once, and picked up a very nice and old 5 gallon metal gas can (like for a jeep), welded seams, etc for very cheap - with one hitch: it was full of 5 year old marine gas! I figured, what the heck - somebody will take it, right...?
How wrong I was! The above mentioned places wouldn't take it, the city wouldn't take it (I couldn't even take it to the hazardous materials drop off!), I even called a local custom gas tank repair/manufacturer - they could dump it, but they wanted a $50.00 disposal fee (and even then, they made it clear to me that doing this was really a violation of their disposal license, and they didn't really want to do it)...
You can't just dump it in a car - I had no idea if somebody mixed oil or what in it, plus it being so old who knows what kind of gunk on the bottom it turned into...
Does anybody know what you do with old gasoline (besides burn it!)?
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it seems socialist, but when handled efficiently it is far better than clumsy private systems where you have collectors competing and stepping on each other's toes and not wanting to offend customers by requiring that they sort garbage. Some times the customer is wrong, and the government can afford to tell them that. The city doesn't have to pay incentive fees for recycling.
Beer bottles still work by recycling deposit though, as they're recycled through the beer store. The deposit's small so I often just eat the cost and recycle them anyways if I'm feeling lazy - but I don't drink a lot of beer.
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Indianapolis, IN, USA we burn our trash. Sounds healthy...Anyways, my point related to trash pickup. Indianapolis USED to have a privately contracted system where you chose your waste company, and they took your trash to their own sorting system to be disposed of. You paid these companies privately. They were always on time, the workers were (reasonably) friendly, and they did their job well. The trash was picked up correctly (by correctly, I mean put into the truck and not thrown all over the street).
Then they built the trash powerplant. In order to feed this burning facility, they decided to implement a system that was supposed to be like the one you described -- municipal tax based, government run. And it is. And it sucks. Badly. Granted, its not Horrible but its nothing like it used to be. The trash people come at different times, and sometimes a day before or a day after. In some parts of the city they use trucks with 1 guy who has an automated arm that picks up trash cans to put the waste into the truck. This doesnt work, and shit gets all over the place -- lawns, streets, sidewalks. Its ok, according to the government, because they also implemented a street cleaning government service too. That means there is no parking, mandatory, for a whole day once every 2 weeks on different streets while they clean up their own mess.
Needless to say, your system sounds envious. But we have something that was supposed to be like what you say, but its sucks hard asscakes.
Re:For consumers, oil is easy to get rid of... (Score:1, Interesting)
Marine gas = two stoke motor gas, for all practical purposes. Chain saw? Gas. Lawn mower? Gas. Older snowmobile? Gas. Stick it in the simplest motor you have, so that in a worst case you have to clean the spark plug. Don't try to extend this to four stroke motors - bad things could happen.
Can you burn brush where you live? Clean up your lot and give the pile a kick start. You'll have to anyway unless the brush is so dry that you shouldn't be doing a pile burn in the first place.
Do you have a fuel oil furnace? These are the layman's industrial boiler. Dilute the gas into a tankload of low-grade diesel (a.k.a. heating oil/fuel oil) and you'll barely change the composition of what you're burning. Personally, I strain out the 5 gallons of peanut oil I use to deep fry the holiday turkey (don't knock it: it's not KFC, it takes only 45 minutes to cook, and it whoops the ass of a baked turkey) and pop it in the fuel oil tank - good way to get back the $15 in materials cost at the end of the day.