Electronics recycling could end in North Carolina

Some legislators in North Carolina have expressed their opposition to a 2010 law that bars electronics from landfills in the state, saying the program designed to keep computers, printers and TVs out of landfills should be repealed, according to an article in The Citizen-Times.

Several lawmakers say the landfill ban for electronics should be repealed “because there aren’t enough recyclers accepting those electronics and there’s a broader market downturn for such goods,” according to the article.

The Citizen-Times reports that a 2010 law barring electronics from landfills also created the recycling program, paid for by annual fees charged to electronics manufacturers, which accept the used products or have recycling outlets doing so on their behalf.

Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, says, according to the article, that there aren’t enough recyclers in the state to collect old TVs and computers, leading some people to throw them into the woods or ditches. A downturn in the recycled electronics market also is discouraging industry growth, she says, according to the article.

“If recycling ever comes back and there’s a profit to be made, we can always change the law and go back to recycling,” Wade says, the Citizen-Times reports. “But right now, we have a bigger problem with them being abandoned and the possibility of having some kind of contamination because we don’t have anywhere to put them.”

A number of media outlets reported environmental groups criticized the proposed program repeal, according to the article. The environmental groups say the electronic recycling industry in the state has created hundreds of jobs.

“Allowing computers and televisions to be thrown into landfills undermines an important industry as well as our environment,” Dustin Chicurel-Bayard, a state Sierra Club spokesman, says in a release.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, a legislator on environmental issues, says politics also was to blame for the repeal effort. She says the program has taken years to develop “but really hasn’t had much of a chance to prove its merits yet,” the Citizen-Times reports.

The bill, which is scheduled for Senate floor debate the week of May 30, also would exempt some manufacturing facilities from energy efficiency requirements in the state building code and repeal mandates on state government to conduct energy audits on government agencies and institutions of higher learning once every five years, according to the article.