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The City Council may have passed an electronics recycling law recently, but Mayor Bloomberg says it's lame and illegal!
The bill requires electronics manufacturers to establish recycling programs for their products and establishes fines of $100 by 2010 for people who throw their computers, printers or other electronics in the trash. Manufacturers will also be penalized $50,000 if they fall behind set recycling requirements.
The mayor said he would refuse to enforce such a law even if the Council does override his veto because it's "totally illegal," violating a "whole bunch of federal laws on Interstate Commerce." Bloomberg, who is generally in favor of recycling programs, thinks the City Council is making manufacturers responsible for consumer behavior beyond their control. He likened the idea to holding newspaper publishers financially responsible for readers who don't put their papers into recycling.
If the Council overrides his veto (the initial vote passing the bill was 47-3 in favor), odds are that the Bloomberg will just pretend it never happened and carry on as usual, the way he has with cell phones at public schools (he hates 'em, the City Council says kids can have their phones). Apple Computers actually supports the recycling plan, although most of the industry is dead set against it.
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the city council should be abolished. always looking for something new in peoples lives to control with a fine if you dont comply
I couldn't disagree with Bloomie & Arsguide more. Manufacturers should take responsibility for the piles of shit they create.
You can buy a computer from all kinds of convenient places, or order one online while sitting on your butt. However, when it comes to getting rid of the broken ones, you have to trudge across town to a rare recycling station that's closed most of the time.
You can sit on your ass repeating "it's consumer behavior" as much as you like, but it won't change anything.
gotta agree. if the monetary and enviromental benefits are not proven then there's no point in recycling. neither of which are provided in the article.
#2
And the manufacturer will then point at you for being such a consumer whore. Even if a PCB is RoHS compliant, you really can't scrap it.
What, are you going to spend billions of dollars and arguably more equipment to try to figure out how to save the strips of copper you have on the board? It doesn't make a lot of sense; at the same time you shouldn't be sending these to the outskirts of Lagos to burn. Disposal and recycling are two different things. I don't think the mayor would be against proper disposal.
Let me add that the parts that are 'recycled' are generally not PCB components (chips, etc.), because you save so little, and it's really hard to extract. Plastic, steel, and/or aluminum casings can be reused. There's no point in even attempting to recycle the silicon semiconductors because you just grab some sand, and you're good to go.
Well, I have an idea. Make it so that all electronics can be traced back to their purchaser. This won't be that hard in the future. Aren't there already companies that will give you a rebate or something if you bring back your old cell phone when you buy a new one? Something along those lines, anyway, I'm sure I've seen.
Then, if the consumer doesn't use the recycling options that have been put in place by the manufacturer according to law, it would be easy enough to trace the discarded electronic device back to the owner. Then the owner would pay for his negligence.
I'm all for recycling, but things have to be done right!