Electronic Waste
Dealing With New York City’s 'E-Waste' Problem
Take a look in the back of your closet and haul out that old laptop running on Windows 95 with less computing power than your Blackberry.
In fact, go ahead and open your sock drawer and take out that first-generation Ipod that stopped working after it went through the rinse cycle in your blue jeans.
All of these electronic devices contain toxics: cadmium, lead and mercury.
According to a 2006 report to the Natural Resources Defense Council by students in Columbia’s M.P.A. Program in Environmental Science and Policy, over 100 million personal computers are tossed away every year and about 500 tons of electronic waste is disposed every week in New York City.
While most toxic waste is regulated by the federal government, small businesses and households are exempt from these rules. Seeing this problem, a number of governments here and in Europe have started to regulate the disposal of electronic waste.
On Feb. 13, the City Council passed its own E-waste bill.
Anthony DePalma writes in The New York Times:
The City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would impose a $100 fine on anyone who throws an old computer, printer or other electronic gadget into the trash. Recycling the electronic waste will become mandatory, and manufacturers will be required to take back their own products as well as those made by companies that have gone out of business…. read more »
