There is no federal regulation of electronic waste, and only half of the states have systematic e-waste recycling programs. Massachusetts is not among them. According to the Department of Environmental Protection, only 62 million of the Commonwealth’s 382 million pounds of e-waste was recycled in 2011. The rest goes into landfills or waste combustion facilities. Or it leaves the country for the developing world, likely ending up in dumps where families wade through toxic soup and fumes to extract the metals.
In short, our waste-disposal chain hasn’t kept up with the ubiquity of electronics in today’s homes and workplaces. “We have a robust system for white goods, refrigerators, washers, dryers, things that have a lot of steel,” said MIT researcher Jeremy Gregory, coauthor of a paper released in conjunction with the UN report. “It makes sense that we devise one for electronics.”
On Beacon Hill, a bill that has made its way up to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, sponsored by Taunton Democrat Marc Pacheco, would require electronics manufacturers to establish and pay for recycling programs for televisions, computers, laptops, monitors, and printers. Supporters hope the bill will lead to the collection of 6 pounds per capita of e-waste — a rate that would rival the best in the nation. In states such as Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, producers of electronics pay for collection at convenient locations. Such provisions encourage manufacturers to take into account, when designing products, the need to dispose of them safely at some point in the future.
State Senator Jamie Eldridge, an Acton Democrat, and Representative Frank Smizik, a Brookline Democrat, would go farther than Pacheco and require producers to accept electronics on an “on-going, year-round basis.” But given the electronics industry’s strong opposition, Pacheco’s more gradual bill seems the more realistic place to start. The Legislature should pass Pacheco’s bill, but be prepared to strengthen the law if collections too easily hit their goals.
Massachusetts once led the way in combating one form of e-waste, instituting the nation’s first ban on cathode ray tubes in landfills more than a decade ago. That same sense of foresight is needed now.