Biz Tip: Helping you save the environment
How to dispose of e-waste properly
By GAIL PARENT
North County businesses that have been sending their image projection technology e-waste to New Hampshire landfills since Massachusetts prohibited such disposal, won’t have that option much longer.
The new state law prohibits any "video display device" as of this coming July 1. While the state law carries no penalty, illegal disposal can be traced back to the disposal vendor - and its customers.
Included in the definition of prohibited items is the visual display component of a television or a computer, whether separate or integrated with a computer central processing unit/box, and includes a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), gas plasma, digital light processing, or other image projection technology, greater than
4 inches when measured.
As a result of increased production and decreased life spans,
electronic waste is one of the fastest growing components of the waste
stream. The toxic components in e-waste makes the landfill and incinerator disposal of these products particularly problematic. E-waste contains metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury, and brominated flame retardants that can pollute groundwater if disposed in a leaking landfill. The incineration of e-waste releases some of these heavy metals into the atmosphere while the remainder of these metals is sent to landfills as a component of incinerator ash. In landfills, these metals can produce contaminated leachate.
Leachate is a liquid that forms in landfills from waste that can percolate through the soil carrying substances from the waste and has the potential to contaminate soil and waterbodies. The majority of electronic devices tested create leachate that exceeds the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act limit of five milligrams per liter of lead. Leachate with lead concentrations above the threshold is considered hazardous waste.
However, since the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act includes an exemption for household hazardous waste, e-waste from households and small businesses remains unregulated at the federal level. The lack of national legislation has encouraged the development of state and local policies to address the e-waste problem. E-waste can cause cancer, birth defects and even death.
Businesses, consumers & residents must make sure that they are dealing with a reputable disposal vendor. Be sure that your vendor is not simply exporting your e-waste with no end of life destination information.
Any reputable disposal vendor should be able to provide the following to ensure that the e-waste is being recycled responsibly:
• Certificates of Recycling and Downstream or End of Life destination information,
• EPA permit ID# & Certificate of Liability Insurance information.
To set up a cradle to grave disposal plan for your electronic equipment, contact your local state offices, or contact an electronic
recycling company in your area and ask for credentials.
If your business is too small to require such a plan, find a disposal vendor with regular business-week drop-off hours, such as ours, which takes e-waste from consumers, businesses, residents and municipalities.
Gail Parent is sales manager at RST Monitor Recycling/RST Reclaiming Co. Inc., in Hudson, NH.
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