EnviroBinz Blog

When California’s first in the nation e-waste recycling law was adopted in 2003, an often-touted statistic was an extrapolation from a National Safety Council study which placed the numbers of PC’s discarded in California daily at 6,000. New Data from the high tech research firm Gartner places the number of PC’s discarded by Californians at more than 16,000 daily. The Good News? Thanks to California’s SB 20 (Sher) recycling law, it appears that California is far outpacing the rest of the nation in e-waste actually recycled. Preliminary data for 2006 suggests that one of every five pounds of e-waste recycled in the US is recycled in California. And California remains the only state with restrictions on the export of e-waste for recycling. Not surprisingly, two state legislators have introduced bills this year to expand the state’s successful e-waste law.

SOURCE: Californians Against Waste

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With Oregon’s rigid plastic container rate expected to fall short of the 25% rate specified by law for a second year in a row, businesses and environmentalists alike are pondering changes to the bill. Businesses are worried about fines that come into affect if the rate remains below 25% and environmentalists would like to see greater incentives for recycling. Mike Verespej of Plastics News writes that the dip in recycling—a national problem—is largely due to the proliferation of plastic water bottles:

“Data compiled by the Washington-based Container Recycling institute showed the number of plastic water bottles sold in 2005—29 billion—exceeded the number of soft drink bottles sold and the recycling rate for water bottles was less than 15 percent, compared with 33 percent for soft drink bottles.”

There are four bills currently competing with each other in Salem to amend Oregon’s Bottle Bill law.

SOURCE: Californians Against Waste

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