Waste News, February 16, 2004
E-waste Impasse Cleared at Last
By Joe Truini

PORTLAND, ORE. -- It's either a big step toward a national electronics recycling program or a step backward, it just depends who you talk to.

Participants in the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative, the three-year effort to create a national electronics recycling system, met for the last time in Portland on Feb. 11. They concluded without agreeing on a financial system to pay for a national electronics collection and recycling program. But electronics industry stakeholders endorsed a resolution with state governments and environmental groups at the meeting to draft legislation to create a nationwide electronics recycling program.

Manufacturers will work together to develop a system to finance the nationwide program through front-end fees or alternative plans. The NEPSI stakeholders will then recommend the financing system to Congress.

"It's definitely not a step backward,'' said Scott Cassel, Executive Director of the Product Stewardship Institute in Lowell, Mass., which represented local government interests in the NEPSI dialogue. "There's a potential here for it to be the start of developing a national system or back to square one.

"It's in [the manufacturers'] court to come back. If not, this thing, it falls flat.''

The industry did not give a time frame for developing and detailing a financing system, but there is an understanding that it will be sooner rather than later, said Catherine Wilt, NEPSI coordinator and senior research associate for the Center for Clean Products & Clean Technologies at the University of Tennessee.

"I'm surprisingly pleased about the outcome. I thought we would be done talking in the first day of the meeting,'' she said. "It's not a done deal, but it's really close. It's really close.''

But some environmental groups, especially those that participated in the NEPSI process, came away from the meeting with a less positive take on the agreement.

"Industry still hasn't been able to come up with a financing policy that works,'' said Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose, Calif. "Now, late in the game, electronics companies have finally come up with a new vague outline that would allow some companies to take responsibility for their own products rather than charge consumers and extra fee.''

However, Wilt credited electronics industry members for compromising and taking responsibility for the financing of the system. Financing has been the primary hold up in the process.

"The members who represented industry in NEPSI have shown incredible leadership in agreeing to work together in the near future on how best to finance recycling efforts,'' said Heather Bowman, director of environmental affairs for the Electronics Industries Alliance, a trade group that represents more than 2,300 electronics firms. "The other stakeholders should be commended as well for their willingness to ratify new approaches for dealing with a new and incredibly complex environmental challenge.''

The resolution also allows manufacturers to fulfill their recycling responsibilities collectively or individually through the development of Alternative Stewardship Plans. Through the Alternative Stewardship Plans, manufacturers will demonstrate how they intend to meet collection and recycling goals set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or another neutral party.

"There was very thoughtful, open dialogue that was beneficial and that helped us to continue to move forward,'' said Pat Nathan sustainable business director for Dell Inc.

Cassel is encouraging state and local governments to continue to move forward on their own legislation to handle electronic waste in case the industry fails to reach a consensus, even though they prefer a national system.

"That is one of the drivers for manufacturers,'' he said. "Without starting to develop the state programs, the industry is going to find it less attractive to develop a national solution.''

The NEPSI stakeholders first met in San Francisco June 21, 2001, with the goal of developing an electronics collection, reuse and recycling system that included a viable financing mechanism.

Contact Waste News reporter Joe Truini at (330) 865-6166 or jtruini@crain.com