Minnesota Legislature Passes Country's Toughest E-Waste Bill
The state's groundbreaking legislation will require electronics manufacturers to pay for collecting and recycling e-waste.
The Minnesota state legislature last week passed an innovative "producer responsibility" bill which requires electronics manufacturers to pay for collection and recycling of electronic waste from households.
This is the first bill in the country to set actual targets for how much equipment the manufacturers must take back and recycle, measured as a percent of the products they are selling in the state. The bill requires each manufacturer that sells TVs, computer monitors and laptops in Minnesota to collect and recycle an amount proportional to the weight of their products sold in the state during the previous year.
The law will require manufacturers to collect 60 percent of the weight of their sales during the first year of the program, and in subsequent years they will have to in collect 80 percent of the waste. Hitting these goals will remove an anticipated 28 million pounds of e-waste from Minnesota landfills in 2008 alone.
"This is the most ambitious bill in the country to date, because it pushes the industry to find ways to encourage people to return their old electronics for recycling," said Ted Smith, chairman of the Computer TakeBack Campaign. "This bill will also encourage electronics companies to improve their product design to make them easier to recycle. This is a very important step forward in addressing the mushrooming e-waste problem.”
Minnesota is now the fifth state in the U.S. to pass legislation mandating electronics recycling, joining California, Maine, Maryland and Washington States. E-waste bills were introduced in 23 states plus New York City for the 2007 legislative session, many of them still under consideration including bills in Oregon, Texas, Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Michigan, Vermont.
This is the first bill in the country to set actual targets for how much equipment the manufacturers must take back and recycle, measured as a percent of the products they are selling in the state. The bill requires each manufacturer that sells TVs, computer monitors and laptops in Minnesota to collect and recycle an amount proportional to the weight of their products sold in the state during the previous year.
The law will require manufacturers to collect 60 percent of the weight of their sales during the first year of the program, and in subsequent years they will have to in collect 80 percent of the waste. Hitting these goals will remove an anticipated 28 million pounds of e-waste from Minnesota landfills in 2008 alone.
"This is the most ambitious bill in the country to date, because it pushes the industry to find ways to encourage people to return their old electronics for recycling," said Ted Smith, chairman of the Computer TakeBack Campaign. "This bill will also encourage electronics companies to improve their product design to make them easier to recycle. This is a very important step forward in addressing the mushrooming e-waste problem.”
Minnesota is now the fifth state in the U.S. to pass legislation mandating electronics recycling, joining California, Maine, Maryland and Washington States. E-waste bills were introduced in 23 states plus New York City for the 2007 legislative session, many of them still under consideration including bills in Oregon, Texas, Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Michigan, Vermont.
