Oregon Legislature Mulls Expanding State’s E-Waste Recycling Product List

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has been looking to add computer peripherals, printers, DVD and VCR players and recorders and fax and fax/printer/scanner combo machines to the state’s mandatory recycling electronics products list, said a department official. But a working group set up by the department couldn’t reach “consensus on the potential products,” said Kathy Kiwala, head of the Oregon’s electronics recycling program. So it’s now up the state legislature to act, she said.

Kiwala said the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee is expected to form a panel to deal with the expansion of the e-waste program as it takes up SD-82, a bill to provide recycling credits to electronics manufacturers for exceeding their annual collection and recycling obligations. The committee scheduled a hearing on the bill Tuesday (after our deadline) and she believes there will be a decision about a legislative panel being formed to deal with the proposed expansion of the state’s e-waste program, Kiwala told us.

Regulators in neighboring Washington state are weighing adding electronic readers to the list of products that must be recycled, and are proposing to do so by classifying them as monitors, a product that’s already covered by the law. Other states like Maine and Wisconsin are already regulating tablets as part of the definition of a video display device or a computer. Some states are relying on interpretation of existing e-waste laws to expand their electronics product lists, according to Jason Linnell, executive director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling.

Electronics makers collected and recycled 24 million pounds of unwanted TVs, computers and monitors in 2010, exceeding their goal of 21.5 million pounds, Kiwala said. Device makers collected 19 million pounds in 2009. Last year’s figures represent a recycling rate of 6.3 million pounds a person, she said. That’s higher than Washington’s 2010 per person collection rate of 5.6 pounds, she said. Oregon and Washington started electronics recycling programs in 2009. Kiwala thinks the disposal ban on TVs, computers and monitors that went into effect in January helped Oregon to a big extent surpass its recycling goals.

TVs accounted for 62 percent of the electronics collected in 2010 versus 57 percent the previous year, she said. Computers made up 12 percent (11 percent in 2009) and monitors 26 percent (32 percent in 2009), she said.