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.
Re:Prepaid (Score:2)
And what if they don't recycle? (Score:2)
The problem right now is that there's no incentive, other than my conscience, to recycle now. Even if it was free, it still doesn't make people want to get off their butts and do the right thing.
Taxing items when they are sold is worthless because people buy a lot of this stuff on the Internet where tax collection is going
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:2)
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:2)
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:2)
Because I am somewhat of a freak, I have actually toured our local dump [insidewoodland.com], and asked these very questions.
First, the money that California collects goes to the local landfills. Each landfill becomes a collection point for these electronic devices. They also set up collection points throughout the city. Disposing of electronic devices (new or old) is now free...(because of the tax.)
The landfill
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:2)
You aren't kidding. Sounds highly expensive. So, what happens if I bag the monitor first so the instpectors can't see if it's an electronic device or just a run of the mill body part.
Re:And what if they don't recycle? (Score:2)
Yeah, recycling programs can be a joke. 10 years ago the town I grew up in implemented a recycling program. They had municipal trash pickup which you were automatically billed for each month with your water bill and whatever else they felt like charging you for. On top of that, they sent out these little plastic tubs to everyone to sort their recycleable items into. Everything that wasn't put in to one of the tubs had to be pu
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 pr
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 tra
$6 to $10 is a lot of money (Score:2)
It is not fair. One guy must work for 60 minutes and the other for 7, to have their trash taken away.
The anwser is to have a luxery tax based on income. Those in the bottom half would pay nothing. Those in the top 50% would pay some fee, and those in the top 25% w
Re:$6 to $10 is a lot of money (Score:2)
Because they are both getting the same thing, recycling service. Should we charge different amounts for people to get there license? buy a stamp? use a toll lane? pay overdue fees on a book?. Youre alreay taking more money (both in % and in dollars) from the guy maki
Re:$6 to $10 is a lot of money (Score:2)
you however get no cash.
So what if your clothes look like everyone else's. Your new card is a Yugo. Your computer is a 386 (2ghz 386)
And the 3 meals a day... Breakfast: gruel, Lunch: some random meat sandwich, chips and a pepsi (no coke!), Dinner: Hearty soup and rustic bread. Every day! yum.
There are differences in pay becaus
You've all got it backwards (Score:3, Informative)
For a start, pull scales better than push so instead of making people recycle what you want are people going around scavenging old kit to use for other stuff. At the moment the economics are such that it isn't worth doing this but what if you made it extremely tax friendly for those who do the scavenging? After all, they are providing a social service by taking this unwanted kit.
Tragedy of the commons (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. The problem is that for hazardous materials, what is best for a single entity (person/company) is not what is best for the entire community. This is what is known as the "tragedy of the commons". For those who aren't familiar with this phrase, it's worth-while to read about it [noogenesis.com]. In many ways, it is similar to the more familiar prisoner's dilemna [noogenesis.com].
This is a problem inherent in the capitalistic system. I'm not advocating socialism, but pure capitalism is not a valid economical system as these problem
Re:Prepaid (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Prepaid (Score:2)
It can be in some cases. I bought a 20" LCD, and paid 8$ to recycle ... not a big deal right? I bought a 2.5" LCD display for a project, and paid I think 6 or 7$ to recycle it, and I only paid 60$ for the LCD ... so in that case I think the fee was pretty outrageous.
My question is, what am I getting for my money? They are happy to take my money but what service are they providing in return? Am I entitled to free recylcing service for these LCDs? As far as I
old pit by the highway (Score:2)
Re:old pit by the highway (Score:3, Funny)
Sing it with me the next time it comes around on the guitar.
KFG
Re:old pit by the highway (Score:2)
Natalie's Restaurant (Score:5, Funny)
>
> And rather than make two small piles of garbage. . .
>
> Sing it with me the next time it comes around on the guitar.
This post is called "Natalie's Restaurant", and it's about Natalie, and the Restaurant, but "Natalie's Restaurant" is not the name of the Restaurant, it's the name of the post, and that's why I named this post "Natalie's Restaurant".
Now, it all started about two posts ago, it's on two posts ago when CmdrTaco and I went up to eat some hot grits at Natalie's restaurant...
So we took about half a ton of monitors and stuck 'em in the back of a VW microbus (with RedHat on an old laptop hooked up to a GPS receiver and other implements of destruction) and headed away from the grits shop.
We got back to the University and there was a big sign across the dorm rooms sayin' "Prepaid Recycling Tax Effective As Of Thanksgiving". And we had never heard of payin' $10 for reusing garbage on Thanksgiving before, so with tears in our eyes we drove off lookin' for another place to hand out the free monitors.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the road there was a classroom in a fifteen-foot trailer, and inside the trailer was a little pile of 14" monitors. And we decided that a portable classroom fulla 21" monitors was better than a portable classroom fulla 14" monitors, and rather than see a buncha kids tryin' to work at 640x480 on 14" screens, we decided to give 'em ours.
That's what we did, and drove back to Natalie's to post about it on Slashdot, had a plate o' Thanksgivin' Grits that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning... when we got a phone call... from Officer Obie of the California Computer Recycling Use Fee Commission.
He said "Kid, we found your name on a Post-It Note on the bottom of a 21-inch CRT in a classroom, and the Teachers' Union just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said "Yes Sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie... I put that Post-It note on that CRT."
After speakin' to Obie for about 45 minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and take back the untaxed freebie monitors, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Environmental Officer's Station. So we got in the RedHat VW Microbus with the old laptop, GPS navigation system and other implements of destruction and headed on down towards the Environmental Officer's station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he coulda given us a medal for bein' so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and the second was bawlin' us out and told us never to be seen upgradin' school computers around the vicnity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the environmental officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed.
Re:Natalie's Restaurant (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have the full version?
Re:Natalie's Restaurant (Score:5, Funny)
>
>Do you have the full version?
(In for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well finish the job!)
> > I personally pay the "old pit by the highway" to take care of my old computers...one good chuck and the disposal is all paid up :)
>
> And rather than make two small piles of garbage. . .
>
> Sing it with me the next time it comes around on the guitar.
This post is called "Natalie's Restaurant", and it's about Natalie, and the Restaurant, but "Natalie's Restaurant" is not the name of the Restaurant, it's the name of the post, and that's why I named this post "Natalie's Restaurant".
Now, it all started about two posts ago, it's on two posts ago when CmdrTaco and I went up to eat some hot grits at Natalie's restaurant...
So we took about half a ton of monitors and stuck 'em in the back of a VW microbus (with RedHat on an old laptop hooked up to a GPS receiver and other implements of destruction) and headed away from the grits shop.
We got back to the University and there was a big sign across the dorm rooms sayin' "Prepaid Recycling Tax Effective As Of Thanksgiving". And we had never heard of payin' $10 for reusing garbage on Thanksgiving before, so with tears in our eyes we drove off lookin' for another place to hand out the free monitors.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the road there was a classroom in a fifteen-foot trailer, and inside the trailer was a little pile of 14" monitors. And we decided that a portable classroom fulla 21" monitors was better than a portable classroom fulla 14" monitors, and rather than see a buncha kids tryin' to work at 640x480 on 14" screens, we decided to give 'em ours.
That's what we did, and drove back to Natalie's to post about it on Slashdot, had a plate o' Thanksgivin' Grits that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning... when we got a phone call... from Officer Obie of the California Computer Recycling Use Fee Commission.
He said "Kid, we found your name on a Post-It Note on the bottom of a 21-inch CRT in a classroom, and the Teachers' Union just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said "Yes Sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie... I put that Post-It note on that CRT."
After speakin' to Obie for about 45 minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and take back the untaxed freebie monitors, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Environmental Officer's Station. So we got in the RedHat VW Microbus with the old laptop, GPS navigation system and other implements of destruction and headed on down towards the Environmental Officer's station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he coulda given us a medal for bein' so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and the second was bawlin' us out and told us never to be seen upgradin' school computers around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the environmental officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately
Re:Natalie's Restaurant (Score:3, Informative)
writing Alice's Restaurant http://www.arlo.net/lyrics/alices.shtml [arlo.net]
Re:old pit by the highway (Score:3, Informative)
If you care about recycling, then you'd see your tax dollar at work and you'd feel good about doing your bit for the planet. If you don't, you can still watch people work for you instead of having to haul junk out of the trunk by yourself.
Re:old pit by the highway (Score:2, Informative)
Re:old pit by the highway (Score:3, Insightful)
What !?! (Score:4, Funny)
Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
which they swiftly pass onto consumers. Net result: consumers always pay for recycling (which incidentally sounds rather normal).
Re:Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
Re:Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
Or skimp on the hardware quality/features/whatever.
/me shrugsRe:Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
The only hidden aspect of your situation is that those resellers are the customers of the electronics manufacturer, not you. When the customer says, you need to drop the cost by $10 dollars to maintain margins, that quality capacitor that keeps your TV color balanced just so for the lifetime of the product is junked in favor of one with half the expected life
Re:Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
Re:Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
If, however, they have to drive it to the recycling center and fork over a few bucks to get the thing off their hands, a good portion of the people will simply leave it in the most convenient drainage ditch, roll it down the nearest ravine, or dump it be
Re:Different soups, same taste (Score:2)
That's because there is no other source for a company to acquire the money than from sales. Sales are it, folks. All costs are passed on, they're costs. By definition.
What's silly is the assertion that it is possible to "punish" a company. All it does is raise the costs, and therefore the price of the end products.
Bob-
Ha! (Score:4, Funny)
Ha! Joke's on them! Most of my computers were fished from dumpsters.
Re:Ha! (Score:4, Funny)
Erhm, joke's on you actually: you take care of the recycling for them and they cash the $10 recycling fee.
Re:Ha! (Score:3, Funny)
Dumpster diving! Fun for the whole family. WEEE!
Re:No, but seriously... (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong people.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wrong people.. (Score:2)
Almost true. I gave my PDP-11/03 to my little brother last year!
Re:Wrong people.. (Score:3, Funny)
I am reading this on my 386 in a text only browser. You got something against that?
I know a guy who collects 486's. He has about 20 working machines in his basement, many with a monitor hooked up. Each computer station is manned by a G.I. Joe action figure or Transformer. My buddy goes in front of the class and teaches for 4 hours a day. It is a grueling schedule for him.
Many of his students have gone on to work for prestegious compa
Re:Wrong people.. (Score:2)
I actually have some stuff I need to get rid of, but I've been holding onto it until I can find a responsible way to do it. There's a recycling facility about 30 miles away, and it costs like $10 or so per item, but I'd rather expend the effort and see this junk end up there, than in a landfill or something.
Re:Wrong people.. (Score:2)
And this ignores the obvious reason to throw things away: broken hardware. Of course, it it's not very thick, and is fairly lightweight, you can use it for geeky decor - I hang motherboards and cards on my computer room wall at a 45 degree angle. It loo
Hmm (Score:2)
Currently there are armies of homeless people who roam around the cities and countryside picking up cans to claim the deposits. However the problem is they only pick up the empty cans and leave the other trash on the ground until it washes into the lakes, rivers, and oceans after the
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Actually this whole system would be phenomenally easy to administer. For example each can has a 5 cent deposit. When you return the can, you get 4 cents and the person at the plant who sorts the can from the other crap gets 1 cent. That way you can trade off between the homeless people collecting the garbage and the ones sorting it. Obviously you ne
No bother (Score:2)
But if I have to do anything different from what I would with normal odd-sized trash then I'd just throw it in the dump when they aren't looking and then everybody loses.
Whose Burden is it to keep the computers in a land (Score:2)
If the computers are not recycled, they will most likely end up on the side of the road or in a landfill. Considering that there are materials in the computers which are toxic, this means that the toxins will eventually leak out into the surrounding environment.
So before we ditch recycling, the following questions should be asked: Whose Burden is it to keep the computers in a landfill? Whose Burden is it clean up the toxins? Who's burden is it to pay
Zero tax (Score:2)
Dell does it right... (Score:2)
Consumers pay for everything in the end (Score:2)
Doesn't everyone just sell their old computers for ten or twenty bucks on eBay? People actually throw these things away?
Re:Consumers pay for everything in the end (Score:2)
Re:Consumers pay for everything in the end (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
Adding a surcharge on buying electronics is perfectly reasonable. After all, it's not like those "EVIL MANUFACTURERS" are alone responsible for creating this awful toxic waste that has to be recycled. If nobody were to buy the items, the manufacturer wouldn't manufacture them. The manufacturer only manufactures to satisfy a need in the market.
Whichever way...we pay (Score:2, Insightful)
Knowing state governors, they will probably charge us at POS, then go ahead and bill manufacturers, who will in turn put the tab on our bills.
Oh i can forsee it something like this:
We will end up paying $26.00 for a $10 charge because the s
Ultimately it's always the consumer's burden (Score:2)
Re:Ultimately it's always the consumer's burden (Score:2)
More importantly, the taxpayers who shoulder that burden are the ones who can best afford it, assuming it's funded by a progressive income tax rather than something like sales tax.
A college student making $12,000 a year has a lot less disposable income than a CEO making ten times as much, and if everyone is charged the same flat rate
I don't mean to call you naive.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The consumer (Score:2)
Besides, it's not hard (at le
Re:The consumer (Score:2)
Place the burden at the time of disposal (Score:2)
(Why yes, I do have a stack of old tire
Equivalent (Score:3, Interesting)
Freecycle (Score:2)
Free market burden on disposal (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, if manufacturers have the burden, they will have to charge customers indirectly by increasing purchase price (after all, customers pay for everything in the end).
And if manufacturers carry the direct burden, they will also have the desire to lower disposal costs. Instead of a flat $6 for disposal costs, the manufacturer will want to lower it as close to zero as possible.
This becomes a win-win. It costs the consumer in the end (as it always does), but manufacturers have a strong incentive to minimize the disposal costs.
At the end of the day, I'll speculate that this could be a profit center for the manufacturer - the resale of whole components and quality recycled raw materials could wind up making them money.
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 recycl
Re:Free market burden on disposal (Score:3, Informative)
A friend of mine has been working for the past year for a small, non-profit* electronics recycler run by an environmentalist, their site [retroworks.com] has lots of white-papers, publications and links on this. One of the main thrusts of their work has been working m
Disposal Tax (Score:2)
And while we're at it, gasoline tax should pay for, say, 75% of the Defense budget.
Easy Answer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easy Answer (Score:2)
Yeah, brings up a whole new meaning to the term "computer worm".
I live in Maine (Score:2)
But anyway, there were no fees for computer disposal on the bill. We didn't get any literature about "end of life of your laptop" or anything like that. And the price of it included no hidden fees that I couldn't explain away. If they are putting the burden on manufacturers, they aren't living up to it.
It's not about cost (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I am reminded of the fact that, in Texas at least, places like JiffyLube and any place that changes oil are required to accept old motor oil for proper disposal at no charge. This is a burden on these oil changing places but the purpose is to benefit the evironment, not to "tax" people. This approach is definitely not a tax and has the least amount of bureaucratic overhead. (The benefit to the oil-changing people is that because the outsiders still need to dispose of their used oil properly or face heavy fines if they are caught which means it is less convenient to change their own oil and since they need to make the trip to the lube shop anyway, they just might get more business in the process.)
With that as my own mental image of what an appropriate solution might be, a mandatory "take-back" program is the only way I think is appropriate. Then the sellers can do whatever they [legally] need to do in order to dispose of them properly. This would accomplish the main purpose, which is to decrease the amount of this waste in landfills. Taxing is not appropriate in this case.
But is it really? (Score:2)
What I fear is that this "fee" is really going to be tossed into the general fund, and no useful recycling program will be created. Then it's just a
Costs are passed down the chain (Score:2)
Charge the guy you can catch (Score:2)
If a state tries to get the consumer to pay for disposal at the end of the computer's life, he's quite likely to toss it in the ditch, which is worse than tossing it directly into the dump.
If a state tries to get the manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer to pay for disposal at first sale or import into the state, you run into the same collec
Charge companies (Score:2)
So yeah, prices will go up but at the very least it's an incentive for manufacturers to i
These fees.... (Score:2)
Where I live, you get charged a disposal fee if you buy a tire. If they don't actually dispose of an old tire, too bad, they're required by law to charge you anyway. Then if *YOU* take that tire in to be recycled, then you get charged a recycling fee on top of it. It's similar with other products like batteries.
If it weren't for idiocies like that, then I'd be much more open to these sorts of fees.
steve
Consumers (Score:2)
Re:Consumers (Score:2)
Congratulations for passing economics 101. Now if only the rest of Slashdot could...
Neither option is appropriate (Score:2)
Neither. The only appropriate option is for someone to figure out how to make recycling computers profitable (like some waste oil recyclers, glass recyclers, and aluminum recyclers). Socialism and laws are only going to create more crime, and not less mess
BBH
Try a scrap metal recycler (Score:2)
Or, if you are so inclined and the machine still works, donate it to a school, a boys/girls club, or any one of a number of charitable organizations.
I guess... (Score:2)
Can we get a 1 cent discount if we recycle a magazine? 2 cents for a beer bottle?
I know that computers are a bit different because of the caustic bits insides them, but s
The Fewer Hands That Touch It (Score:2)
e.g.:
State-> $10 recycling fee
Manufacturer-> $10 recycling fee + $2 recycling facilitation fee
Retailer-> $10 recycling fee + $2 recycling facilitation fee + $1 fee collection cost offset charge
Consumer-> $13 total cost
vs.
State->
Neither. Microsoft should pay. (Score:2)
Microsoft has been and will likely continue to be the primary corporate beneficiary of hardware escalation (OK, the hardware companies haven't been hurt by it). Thus, they should pay the bill.
Nah, I don't really think th
Define "recycling" (Score:2)
At the moment, I have a pile of computers lying around that I'd like to get rid off, but I don't want it to end up in a landfill or have their most toxic parts scattered on the ground of a third world country.
I can always donate working hardware to schools in the community, but what about stuff like these $30 dvd players w
The customer ALWAYS pays (Score:3, Insightful)
One way or another, the customer is always the one who pays, it is just a question of "how much?" and "when?"
My preference is that the fee be levied as far down the "value chain" as possible - probably at point of sale, like it is for the states with recycle fees on soda containers.
Charging the fee at point of sale does a couple of good things:
1) The customer knows what they are paying for, it isn't hidden away in the total price. This knowledge helps to prevent the fees being raised as an arbitrary form of taxation - income tax gets taken out of most people's paychecks before they ever even see the money, thus obscuring the direct impact of the tax. I wish to avoid that happening with any new taxes.
2) If the fees were directly assesed to the distributor or manufacturer, then they would be inflated with each step in the process just as the price of the system is. In effect, paying the fee at point of sale is like paying the "wholesale" cost but charging the manufacturer the fee would result in it being marked up to "retail" pricing by the time the end-consumer pays for it, possibly even doubling the original "wholesale" fee level for no added benefit to the environment or the consumer.
Who pays a company's costs? (Score:2)
Just in case anyone's socialist tendencies kick in and think that Maine really is making the manufacturers pay, guess what: The end consumers are paying this in the form of higher prices from those manufacturers. And I bet that New Hampshire stores near the Maine border were happy to hear this news. Their prices will suddenly be relatively lower.
This is a good job for the public sector (Score:2)
Almost everyone uses computers now, and they're integral to the economy. So even if some people end up subsidizing others, it wouldn't be horribly unjust -- it would be defensible on the same grounds that other kinds of economic supports for business would be.
The advantage of the system I'm proposing is that it would probably get computers out of the landfills. It would work.
Trickle-down effect (Score:2)
Either way, you and I will pay the bill.
Market Forces (Score:2)
Putting the burden on the manufacturer's could create some healthy competition - companies with more efficient recycle options would be able to offer cheaper and maybe even less toxic products.
Make manufacturers deal with it. (Score:2)
The consumer *always* pays for it anyway.... (Score:2)
The thing I find slightly ironic/interesting is, we have all this concern and hype over PC recycling lately -- yet computers aren't really made of components any more hazardous in landfills than TV sets. And we've be
Definitely the companies (Score:2)
Article isn't completely correct (Score:2)
But in the end it's the seller that has to pay the State for this cost; whether they collect the fee from their consumers is up to them.
Also, effective July 1, 2005, LCDs and Plasma TVs are included; in the past it was j
Who pays is not the question (Score:2)
Companies tend to like a tax - they can charge it and blame it on the politicians since it appears seperate from the price of the item;
Politicians tend to prefer a hidden cost so they bear no fallout from the added burden.
What is more effective - well, I tend to think if manufacturers have to pay for disposal and take back equipment they will try to find a wa
It HAS to be free (Score:5, Insightful)
The conclusion seems obvious. Hell, I don't even have incentive to volunteer my time to fish them out if I will suffer the insult of paying to deposit the fruits of my good citizenship.
Re:Does it matter? -- YES (Score:2)
Unless...what if it was more of a deposit system? Have the consumer pay an extra $20 up front when they buy a computer, but give them an incentive (maybe $15?) to return the computer so its components can be disposed of or recycled properly.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:2)
Now on the other hand, if we charge for recycling when you bring it into the center, then
It needs to be more ubiquitous (Score:2)
If it were more common then the price would come down.
Re:Solution... (Score:2)
This is already done with ships: This site [jang.com.pk] has an article and a couple of pictures.
Ships are hauled up on to the beaches of Bangladesh and taken apart piece by piece until there's nothing left but toxic waste.
Re:Recycling != Disposal (Score:4, Insightful)
You're confused because you believe something which is not true, namely:
In a perfect world where all costs are properly accounted, recycling would be profitable and end users would be turning in their goods to recoup the cost tied up in no longer useful items. However, one of the reasons we get our copper from Chile is so that we can avoid proper cost of mining it. We're essentially disintermediating the proper environmental, social and labor costs that copper mining in the US would incur. In this sense, we get the copper whithout the side effects of not paying those costs. The Chileans will, eventually. Some corporations and local governments stateside have actaully come to the conclusion that it's actually cheaper to do this stuff abroad than deal with these problems over the long term at home. The hard rock mining industry is a premier example of this and because computers require so many rare earth resources and energy to produce, they're essentially a huge black market of hidden costs that somebody somewhere is stuck with.
Item deposits are not a great way to deal with this problem, but they are one way of dealing with them. The great side effect is that you get the underprivilaged to tidy up the place as they scour your neighborhood for dumped deposit items.
Before you get all huffy at the last remark, please note that it was in the vein of The Onion's story about increasing the bottle deposit to aid the indigent.