CEA Offers Concessions to Green Groups in Texas TV Recycling Measure

CEA has offered some concessions to environmental groups seeking more manufacturer accountability in a TV recycling measure making its way through the Texas Legislature, the Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) said.

CEA has said it embraced HB-1966 as a bill that would not “add to the burden of the state patchwork,” but “encourages TV manufacturers to incorporate electronics recycling into everyday business practice.” The measure doesn’t set collection or recycling targets for industry. The industry backed a similar bill (SB-184) that passed the Utah legislature (CED March 17 p4), saying it’s a model it would like to see nationwide.

CEA agreed to minimal reporting standards for TV makers and offered not to oppose a landfill ban on used electronics, said Stacy Guidry, TCE’s program director. TV makers will report collection data to the state every two years “because the legislature meets every other year,” she said. Most other state laws require annual reporting, she said. Even the Texas computer recycling law mandates annual manufacturer reporting, she said. But in the case of TVs, “that’s what we can get from them at this time,” Guidry said. “I think we hopefully can increase reporting requirements in future legislation,” she said, saying her group was willing to go with the concessions it got from CEA as a “small, biggie step."

"What we agreed to do is participate in a comprehensive program review in 2015 and 2017,” said Walter Alcorn, CEA vice president-environmental affairs. The bill would take effect in 2013. The review will include reporting, but “it’s more comprehensive than that,” he said. CEA is taking no position on an e-waste landfill ban being sought by environmentalists, he said.

But CEA’s backing of bills that don’t set collection and recycling mandates is “laughable,” because “that’s completely contradicted by the data,” said Barbara Kyle, national coordinator of the Electronic TakeBack Coalition. “We see much higher levels of collection in states with targets than in states like Texas where they can do whatever they want,” she said. CEA’s “strategy” is to get “incredibly weak” bills passed “as though that’s going to solve the problem,” she said. “They are supporting laws that aren’t going to result in any significant amount of e-waste collected,” she said.

But some states like Utah and Texas are buying into CEA’s arguments, Kyle said. “It’s too bad that some states are not paying attention to the data to see that despite their [industry’s] stated intentions to fulfill their promises of voluntary efforts, they just don’t do it,” she said. Kyle ascribed the environmentalists’ compromise in Texas to the “politics in the state.” In some cases, “that’s as far as you can go, given the political climate,” she said.