Albany, NY -- New York became the 23rd state to pass legislation with regards to electronic waste disposal according to a release on the Associated Press website. Under the new law, “all manufacturers that sell electronic equipment in the state must have a free, convenient electronic waste, or ‘e-waste,’ recycling program in effect by April 1, 2011. In addition, beginning in January 2015, individuals will no longer be allowed to dump electronic equipment at landfills.
New York has benefitted from watching other states pass similar legislation. A lawyer from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said that New York’s legislation was the “ ‘most progressive’” and “ ‘best researched’” thus far.
Going forward, each manufacturer has to “recycle or reuse its market share of e-waste by weight, based on its three-year average of annual sales in the state.” In addition, they will also have to create and submit annual reports to NY’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) with proof that they met the appropriate levels of collection as well as recycling.
The list of products in the law includes printers in addition to “televisions, VCRs, DVD and MP3 players, game consoles, fax machines, and computers and their peripherals such as monitors, keyboards, mice, and scanners.” According to the AP, “The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 14.9 pounds of electronic waste per person was awaiting disposal in the United States in 2007…the agency says the electronics recycling rate nationally is about 13 percent.”
Despite several e-waste bills being presented in Congress over the past several years, none has had been met with much success. The failure to enact national legislation has left states to do it on their own.
