Minnesota Electronic Recycling Act of 2006 (bill)Posted by Usman Valiante at 11:11 AM
I'm back.
My last entry was regarding "Explicit Property Rights" as a model for regulating wastes associated with products. The legislative bill to establish Minnesota's Electronic Recycling Act 2006 provides an interesting model of just such an approach. Here is an excerpt:
...a manufacturer must comply with the following requirements:
(a) A manufacturer must annually recycle or arrange for the collection and recycling of an amount equal to the percentage of the total weight of covered electronic devices sold by the manufacturer during the preceding program year, as established by the agency under section 115A.1320, subdivision 1.
(b) The obligations of a manufacturer apply only to covered electronic devices received from households and do not apply to covered electronic devices received from owners other than households.
(c) A manufacturer must conduct and document due diligence assessments of collectors and recyclers it contracts with to insure that all collectors and recyclers comply with the requirements of subdivision 2. A manufacturer is responsible for documentation that all covered electronic devices recycled in downstream recycling operations comply with the requirements of subdivision 2.
Subd. 2. Recycler’s responsibilities. (a) A recycler must provide evidence to a manufacturer that the recycler has complied with the following directives with respect to covered electronic devices collected from households:
(1) all solid and hazardous waste generated from recycling covered electronic devices must be managed and processed in North America or a member county of the European Union;
(2) all circuit boards must be managed for metals recovery and processed in a smelter in North America or a member county of the European Union;
(3) any refurbishment or repair of covered electronic devices must take place in North America;
(4) all recycling facilities must possess:
(i) liability insurance of no less than $1 million for releases, accidents and other emergencies;
(ii) all licenses from applicable governing authorities;
(iii) up-to-date written plans for: environmental health and safety training for employees, hazardous materials identification and management, and reporting and responding to releases and other emergencies;
(iv) a plan for closure and a financial guarantee;
(b) Except to the extent otherwise required by law, a recycler has no responsibility for any data that may be on a covered electronic device if an information storage device is included with the device.
A clear example of a conceptual approach which allocates end-of-life property rights to manufacturers and sets out standards for the exchange and management of those rights. It isn't exactly the way I might go about implementing it but the model is there.
More on end-of-life standards next before I visit issues related to "historic" and "orphan" waste and design for the environment (DFE).
Download the Minnesota draft E-waste bill
