Environmental Civil War over Art
States Resolve to Recycle This New Year
Send a big Happy New Year to New Jersey, New York, South Carolina and Vermont.
Those four states are the latest to be added to the roll call of states that have passed e-waste laws, and all four will start their recycling efforts in 2011.
Give props to Maine for becoming the first state to enact an e-waste law back in 2006. Is it any wonder Maine’s state motto is “Dirigo,” which translates to “I lead” or “I direct”?
New York became the 23rd state to pass the law and will move to mandatory recycling for a laundry list of electronic equipment — think computers, TVs, phones and DVD players — come April 1. New Jersey officially got into the act on New Year’s Day. Take that, New York. South Carolina and Vermont will both join the group on July 1.
Under most of the state laws passed, manufacturers of electronics will be required to offer free recycling programs. At some point in the future, it will become illegal to throw electronics in the trash in those 23 states. In New York, for example, that threshold will come to pass in 2015.
“Electronic waste is a very serious environmental issue, both because of toxic materials it contains and because of the lack of options for safe disposal of this equipment,” said Christine Datz-Romero, executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center in New York City. “That’s why we make sure that the recyclers we work with guarantee that all of the material we collect is safely recycled in the United States, instead of being exported to the developing world or incinerated stateside.”