California to Cut Consumer E-Waste Recycling Fee in January

California consumers will see a reduction in e-waste recycling fee on purchases of electronic devices starting in January. CalRecycle Director Margo Brown last week approved a staff recommendation to reset fees, raised in 2008, to levels prescribed in the 2003 e-waste law.

The fee reduction was proposed because the state had a substantial reserve fund. California was the first of 23 states to enact e-waste laws and the only one that adopted a consumer fee-based system to fund collection and recycling. In January, the recycling fee on electronic devices with screen size less than 15 inches will go down to $6 apiece from $8. The fee for devices 15 to 34 inches would be cut to $8 from $16 and for those with screens 35 inches or larger the fee would fall to $10 from $25. In suggesting fee reductions, CalRecycle staff assumed that sales of covered electronics will remain flat at 9.5 million units a year and volume of e-waste recovered would hold at 200 million pounds a year. CEA’s device sales and revenue projections for California and were “fairly close” to CalRecycle’s, the agency said.

CalRecycle got mixed responses to its proposal to cut fees. One stakeholder said the agency shouldn’t reduce fees because “items currently being sold will come back and need to recycled,” according to CalRecycle. The stakeholder suggested that excess money could be “prudently invested” so they could be used in the future. The California fee model is being wrongly called an “advanced recycling fee or ARF,” the agency said. “This label incorrectly gives the impression that funds collected today will be banked for use when the device upon which the fee was assessed has reached the end of its useful life,” CalRecycle said. The fees from the sale of covered electronics today are used “immediately” to pay for collection and recycling of e-waste generated, and “statute limits the reserve that can be maintained,” the agency said.

The agency rejected suggestions that surplus in the reserve be used for recycling other products like batteries. The law allows the fees to be used for collection and recycling of only covered electronic devices, it said. Hewlett-Packard supported reducing the “excess” in the reserve through a “measured reduction in consumer fees,” CalRecycle said. The company also does not favor “wild swings” in fee increases or reductions, it said. CEA and Best Buy also support cutting the surplus in the reserve through a fee reduction, the agency said.