California’s recycling fee system for monitors and televisions is serving as an experiment that is being watched closely by skeptics and fans alike.
Speakers at the Electronics Roundtable at the 2005 ISRI Commodities Roundtable Forum had differing opinions on how well the system is working, but all seemed to agree that it has drawn attention.
John S. Shegerian of Computer Recyclers of America, with locations in Fresno and San Diego, outlined to attendees how California Senate Bill 20/50 has mandated retailers in the state to collect fees ranging from $6 to $10 for computer monitors and televisions sold in the state.
The fees are banked by the state with the intended use of reimbursing licensed collectors and recyclers who aggregate and recycle monitors and televisions either 20 cents or 48 cents per unit. Thus far, just $3.8 million of the $27 million collected has been paid to collectors and recyclers, according to Shegerian.
But he deemed the program worthwhile for its environmental benefits and its boost to the electronics recycling infrastructure in the state. He noted that 20 million pounds of monitors and televisions were collected in California in the first half of 2005, and that 40 million pounds was probable for the year. “Those numbers are likely to increase next year and the year after,” Shegerian predicted. “No matter what you’ve heard or read about SB 20/50, it is working tremendously.”
Monitor glass recycler David Cauchi of Envirocycle Glass Co., Mesa, Ariz., said the establishment of a system such as California’s may be the only way to allow recyclers to make capital investments to establish a recycling infrastructure.
“We firmly believes front-end fee collection should be the model basis” for any federal guideline, said Cauchi. He said this year, as SB 20/50 was put into place, California started with 12 licensed collectors and 4 processors, but now has some 300 collectors and 15 processors.
Cauchi said SB 20/50 “has enabled us to put more money into capital investment, which I think was the goal of the legislation.” He said the company will remain reluctant to set up facilities in states that allow exporting and landfilling of monitors and televisions.
ISRI Director of Governmental and International Affairs Eric Harris cautioned, though, that the California model could create an electronics recycling economy that is not market-based and thus potentially not viable in the long term.
Harris said the 48-cent fee that the state pays per unit is “inflating the value” of the commodities produced from the stream. He said the challenge for the recycling industry is “to develop an electronics recycling infrastructure that is not dependent on this subsidy.”
An Electronic Recycling Policy Statement issued by ISRI this July offers support for legislation that temporarily (until electronics recycling markets become viable) “holds producers financially responsible for the collection, transportation and recycling of electronics,” but not through the “imposition of advanced recycling fees (ARFs)” such as now exist in California.
The ISRI statement says that in cases where ARFs are collected or any type of producer responsibility obligation is imposed, the trade group “supports ending producer financial responsibility and ARFs as soon as practicable.”
The ISRI 2005 Commodities Roundtable Forum was held in suburban Chicago from Sept. 20 to Sept. 22. Some 600 brokers, traders, processors and suppliers gathered for the educational and networking event.