"E-Trash" A Growing Concern

(CBS)  We love our electronics, but it's a fickle affair. When something better enters the picture, we dump it.

Now, there's growing concern that the nearly 3 billion electronics products that Americans cherish will wind up in landfills, reports CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2005 we threw out 2.2 million tons of unwanted electronics. Most of it went into landfills. Only about 345,000 tons were recycled.

That recycling number may soon improve. Electronics giant Sony recently began a nationwide recycling program.

"Our goal for this program is also for every pound of product we put on the market, we want to take a pound back," said Mark Small, Sony's vice president for environment, safety and health.

His plan would amount to taking back 200 million pounds of electronics -- that's what Sony produced last year.

The program provides free recycling for any Sony product taken to select waste management "e-cycling" centers.

Creative Recycling has been recycling electronics for 13 years. In a matter of minutes, TV's, stereos, fax machines, and computers are shredded to pieces.

"We do not want lead and other heavy metals going into landfills or going into our environment," said Creative Recycling's president, Jon Yob.

And in our got-to-have-the-latest tech world, the problem is only growing.

"The rate of functional obsolescence is ever increasing, and it's driving more and more equipment into the waste stream," said Yob.

That's why University of Florida scientists have built giant lysimeters, or simulated landfills, to find out if lead from electronics is leaking into the earth.

"So we filled this one up with solid waste -- garbage -- and 6 percent electronic waste, and we packed it all in, just like you pack down garbage in a landfill with a compactor. And then we trickle in water at the very top like it's rain water," said John Schert, executive director of the Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management at the University of Florida.

Then they collected the liquid samples.

"Our laboratory studies that we did showed the lead leakage from these was quite significant," said Schert.

The leakage was not as severe in field tests. Still, the EPA used this data to rule cathode ray tubes in TVs and colored computer monitors are considered hazardous waste.

"In the next 1,000 years, what's going to happen to this lead?" said Schert. "We don't know."

Experts believe these steps will prevent today's trash from becoming tomorrow's problem.

[eggy1620]

This would not be a problem if communities held hazardous waste collections more than once a year.

[hawksprings]

J-whit, are these the same computers that Clinton sold to the Chinese Communists??

[oldpilot954]

Since we have brought politics into the discussion, I have a question. If we quit allowing liars, cheats, etc. run for office, who would we have to run our government? We wont vote for anyone who tells us the truth -- that the real problem is "We the People" want what is best for "us" not what is best for the "nation" or the "world". So who is left to vote for?

[oldpilot954]

I find trying to recycle anything frustrating. I read about all of these great recycling programs and I know, for example, it takes only 5% as much energy to recycle aluminum as to make new. But the only recycling I can do in the semi-rural county where I live is metal products. 10 years ago I could go to the county trash disposal site and recycle metal, plastics, and paper. I now have no options except paying to send everything to a landfill. To recycle metal I have to drive to a scrap yard outside of the county I live in. Oh yeah -- I can recycle engine oil through several options. I assume there is no recycling available to me because companies that do it cannot make money at it. I am not sure that I know why recycling is so hard to make profitable. I do know that previous to about 1990 we used to sell waste engine oil but after the change in EPA regulations we had to start paying to have the same person come and haul it away. To my knowledge the only real change was the paperwork required for the disposal. Recycling, with the exception of metals, is probably never going to make a significant profit but it is the right thing to do. Therefore, we must understand that to protect the environment in the long term, we will have to lower our standard of living today. That means buying fewer or more green items and seeing more of our income paying for proper disposal. Americans with their "Me First!" attitudes are not willing to that yet.

[j-whitman]

hawksprings -
-- Your republican "No Regulation", "No Restrictions", "Smaller Government", & "No Accountabilty" -- Has already resulted in scrapped military computers being sold to Communist China & North Korea,,, they not only get the gold out of them, they also recover military secrets.

[abbyn67]

Another great example is all of those ipods!!! Once the battery is used up - where will those great gotta-have items be? Thrown-away. To be replaced by another great ipod. It''s a vicious cycle.

[dare2begreen]

Lets talk green, please visit www.dare2begreen.com

[creeper00]

I wonder how many tons of dead batteries we throw away every year. That can''t be any better.

[hawksprings]

This isn''t a problem, it''s an opportunity for someone.
I was watching a different news segment where a guy started a business that collected all this electronic junk, melted it down, recovered the gold out of it and sold it for a profit, like is mentioned in this story.
That''s the Free Enterprise system at work.

Of course if your a Liberal, your solution to this would be another government program and more taxes to pay for it.

Isn''t that right.

[hypnotoad72]

When something new appears, people are encouraged to buy it and summarily dump their old product. Assuming it hasn''t already failed due to having been manufactured with substandard components.

Besides, since when has our society said "Let''s standardize on this one version?" Never. It always conjures up "Newer and better!!!" and cajoles people to chuck out what they used to have in favor of the new version. No doubt, had the person who coined "If it ain''t broke don''t fix it" lived today, he''d have been assassinated.

Please do not try to pin the entire problem on fickle consumers. The best anyone could get away with is "entrapment", but the situation isn''t nearly as myopic as that.