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Governor’s Task Force on Waste Materials Recovery and Disposal: Part II Electronics, We’ll all be in the same boat, does anybody know the words to Kumbaya? For some folks this will be upsetting. For others it will be vindication, so take your pick. In part one we took notice of the Governor’s Task Force of Trash Talkers (yes, I am jealous…) For about a year these folks looked at the social, environmental and economic impacts of managing our trash and where we might improve. One of the recommendations of the task force is to close some loopholes in Wisconsin’s waste code. Namely, ending a number of exemptions for households. The biggest one is in regards to electronics. Businesses for a number of years have been required to recycle their electronics, including cathode ray tubes, or CRTs. CRTs are your picture tubes such as are found in most televisions and computer monitors. By State law these are optional for residents to recycle. With the growing movement to HD TV and ‘flat screen’ monitors, we can expect to see millions of CRTs disposed of in Wisconsin alone in the next five years. If the Task Force recommendations go through, we’ll be up to our armpits in CRTs, but pronto. In comparison, businesses are often held to stricter standards than residents in this state. Batteries, fluorescent tubes and CRTs are usually recycled by businesses. In comparison, Bart’s guess for residents is that about 15% or less do so. Obsolete and broken electronics are becoming a large portion of our solid waste stream. As a nation we now produce several MILLION of tons of electronic waste per year. Now turning in ‘regular’ recyclables is free at the landfill, and included as a part of your collection service by Waste Haulers in Oneida County. However, for some batteries, and all fluorescent bulbs and CRTs there are costs involved. Non-rechargeable batteries cost $1/lb; fluorescent bulbs 50 cents each and CRTs cost $10 each.. This fact, for many folks, will be the crunch. We expect and demand businesses to ‘do the right thing’, no matter what the costs, and are greatly upset when some environmental misdeed by a business is exposed. Yet, on the other hand, many of us will not conform to the same standards, usually because ‘it costs too much’, or ‘will take too much time’. There have been a few times, when a customer is expressing displeasure about the price of hazardous waste disposal. The usually comment is, “Boy, you want people to do the right thing, but you charge so much”. As I’ve grizzled, I have gotten a bit less diplomatic, and so my typical response is “So, you want to do the right thing, as long as somebody else pays for it?” And that’s the bottom line for some folks’ ‘waste management’ decisions. I’m glad to report, however, that the great, vast majority of folks I deal with around these parts will do the right thing. The biggest part of my job is just letting them know what to do. So there may be some changes coming, and some challenges will result. But not any different from when state mandated recycling began in 1994. |
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©2004 Oneida County Solid Waste Department
PO Box 400
Rhinelander, WI 54501
PO Box 400
Rhinelander, WI 54501
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