"Arfa Daily" hath wroth:
So how
does nonsense like this encourage people to become more eco and recycle
friendly ?
Arfa
It doesn't. Bureaucratic abuse as in your examples is very common
when the value of revenue enhancement exceeds the value of the crime.
The garbage collectors probably had a quota of violations that were
necessary to make their manager look good. Lacking the necessary
violations, planting the junk mail letter would have been expedient.
Aggressive enforcement also helps the legal system perpetuate itself
with a steady case load. Meanwhile, recycling continues as a minor
aspect of the revenue enhancement.
I don't have any brilliant suggestions as to how to solve the problem.
At one time, the bureaucratic overhead raised the cost of recycling
auto batteries to the point where it was cheaper to leave them by the
road side, than to do the manditory paperwork. So, a law was passed
requiring that an old battery be supplied with every new battery
purchase. That actually worked quite well and has resulted in a high
lead recycling rate. Something similar could be done for major
appliances and general recycling. Turn in your old whatever before
you can buy a new one, or pay a huge deposit, fee, tax, or whatever.
In effect, remove the penalty cost of not recycling from the grossly
inefficient legal machinery, and move it to the commercial
establishment at the time of sale. If anything, it might create a
demand for items to recycle.
As for the lead content in CRT's, we've had this discussion before.
Briefly, there's very little lead in todays CRT's.
http://www.eiae.org/chemicals/files/EIA_CRT_5-01.pdf
At this time, all CRT glass manufacturers in the USA are shipping so
called no-lead CRT glass. Unfortunatly, there is still some lead in
these CRT's and some CRT's have a temporary RoHS exemption. I expect
all CRT's to be lead free in about 5-10 years, but also expect the
lead recycling fee to be permanent.
What glass enclosed lead is in the CRT is stored in the safest
possible manner which will take many thousand years to extract. The
standard test for leaching the lead out of glass requires that the CRT
be ground down to dust, and attacked by caustics. The law is being
applied equally to LCD's as well, which have almost no lead in the
glass. The logic is that the recycling workmen cannot be expected to
differentiate between a CRT and an LCD.
In California, we pay a $10 tax at the time of purchase on all CRT and
LCD displays over 4" diagonal.
http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Electronics/Act2003/
In effect, we pay the recycling fees in advance. There are no added
charges at the dump, and the tax allegedly goes to pay for the
requisite special handling as anything containing lead is considered
hazardous waste. Actual recycling and lead recovery is done by
competative contract service companies. The proceedure for collecting
the tax is 48 pages thick:
http://www.boetaxes.ca.gov/business/Vol4/Fcp/fcpl.pdf
which mostly deals with penalties imposed on merchants that can't
decode the required collection proceedures. There are also Federal
recycling rules which must be met:
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste...ectron/crt.htm
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WAST...y-28/f6490.htm
Only 108 pages.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558