New York City is the first city in the nation trying to be responsible about electronic waste.  Offering legislation that would require manufacturers of electronic products to offer a collection service and recycle their products at their own cost.  This bill is modeled after the European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive which is designed to make the polluter pay.  The New York City Council voted 47-3 to approve the legislation but Mayor Michael Bloomberg has publicly stated he will veto the bill.   

The bill includes a timeframe for manufacturer responsibility:

 ·        2010 – $100 fine on residents for throwing out electronic equipment

·        2012 – Manufactures must collect 25% of their sales in discarded electronic equipment

·        With an estimated 25,000 tones of electronic trash annually in New York City alone that is only 6,250 tons!

·        2015 – Minimum collected for recycling increase to 45%

·        2018 – Minimum collected for recycling increase to 65%

·        Manufactures would be fined $50,000 for each percentage point they fall below standards 

A major point of argument against the bill is that these numbers and percentages are completely arbitrary, which may be the case.  According to City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn “We think it’s very important that the bill have specific goals and thresholds in it because that is what you need to make sure this actually happens.”  

On Bloomberg’s weekly radio show he compared the bill to going after newspaper publishers because their readers aren’t recycling old papers.  The problem with that comparison is that there are ample avenues for recycling paper and even if people refuse to recycle and simply trash newspapers, when they go into a landfill they will not leach toxic chemicals like lead, mercury or cadmium. If manufacturers are held responsible for the products they produce perhaps they will work toward making products that can be recycled or that will not leach harmful, toxic chemicals back into the earth.