Tools

Print this story

Facebook this

Tweet this

Digg this

Del.icio.us

Email to a friend

Your name

Your email address

Recipients’ email addresses (Up to ten, separated by commas.)

Many of our readers got brand new iPods and Playstations this Chrismukkah season — and if one Brooklyn lawmaker has his way, they’ll soon get to hand back their old ones to the companies that made them.

A new bill being pushed by City Councilman Bill DeBlasio (D-Park Slope) would shift responsibility for handling discarded products from consumers to manufacturers like Apple and Sony.

DeBlasio’s bill would require the companies to take back as many of their products as they sell in New York City — and as you might imagine, some of the companies are not happy about picking up your trash.

“There’s going to be a fight,” DeBlasio told The Brooklyn Papers. “The lobbyists are out in force to stop the bill or water it down.”

Lobbyists for several companies testified at a recent hearing that the legislation would place a burden on the electronics industry and result in higher prices.

DeBlasio (inset) dismissed that charge, adding that his goal is not to punish electronic companies, but to reform them. The cost of a take-back program would be an incentive to design products that are easier to recycle and don’t contain hazardous materials.

After all, said Ari Kahn of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the city’s e-waste problem is “blowing up” because gadgets now become outdated so quickly.

The EPA estimates that 56 million computers become obsolete each year — yet the city currently has no plan to deal with e-waste. Less than 10 percent of discarded electronics equipment is recycled, Kahn said.

Electronic devices comprise just 1 percent of a typical landfill — yet they account for 70 percent of toxic heavy metals like lead and mercury, according to the EPA.

Legislation in other states is “working pretty well,” said Kahn, but some, like California, charge consumers to cover recycling costs.

Closer to home, grassroots groups are already pitching in. The Lower East Side Ecology Center and DeBlasio hosted the fourth annual “Electronics Recycling Day” at PS 321 in Park Slope two weeks ago, taking in an estimated seven tons of old gear.

And in September, the Sanitation Department got more than 2,000 people to unload 41 tons of electronics, including 237 pounds of cellphones, at an event in Prospect Park.

The event inspired DeBlasio.

“It was amazing,” he said. “There were thousands of people standing in line to give away this stuff because it pained them to see it go into a landfill. I took that as a mandate from my constituents.”

He believes the bill will become law as early as next spring (when those bristling new toys start falling apart), but for now, it’s still tied up in hearings.

©2006 Community Newspaper Group