Schumacher, K. A., & Agbemabiese, L. (2020). E-waste legislation in the US: An analysis of the disparate design and resulting influence on collection rates across States. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 1-22. doi:10.1080/09640568.2020.1802237
Electronic waste management is a broken system in the US. It is inconsistent, disparate, and a patchwork. There is no current federal legislation on its regulation; only 25 states have some sort of legislation targeted at promoting e-waste recycling and prohibiting disposal in landfills. However, much of these states had programs prior to states actually involving themselves in the entire recycling process. Surprisingly, much of the e-waste management was better and well targeted before then. This puts into question whether state or federal governments should be responsible for e-waste management in the United States.
I didn’t think electronic waste was such a large problem in the United States because I live in the microcosm of the Silicon Valley. I’ve seen programs at my parents tech offices for disposal of old electronics, which made me have nationwide faith. However, not many states have these programs which is disappointing. However, given that federal regulation is much more effective than these statewide programs, I think we should have national programs for this.
I’m with you Neeraj. So often we use CA as the standard. I was surprised that only 25 states have programs set up. You may know that most of our e-waste gets sent abroad to be recycled (a time-consuming task). Assuming there will be a steady stream of e-waste, do you think there are already federal laws that just need enforcement on the local levels, or do we need new ones? Or do the companies producing products that containe the waste need to take responsibility for it (ie. Cradle to Grave)?
There are no federal laws that are very restrictive. I think it need to be insitutionalized with more restrictive legislation at the federal level. I think in general companies should be incentivize by the UN to use materials and processes that are better for the long term of our environment,