House is to Vote on E-waste Recycling Research Bill

Date: April 20, 2009

Source: News Room

The House is expected to vote this week on a bill to help improve recycling technologies and encourage the use of more environmentally sensitive materials to address the growing amount of electronic waste. H.R. 1580, introduced by Science Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), would authorize the US EPA to give grants for e-waste reduction research and development. The grants would focus on research to improve the efficiency of recycling and collection programs, develop less hazardous materials for manufacturing and promote lifecycle analyses of electronic devices. They would also target boosting public awareness of electronic waste and how to deal with it. Despite representing only a few percentages of the overall waste stream, the proliferation of new gadgets and consequent reduced lifecycle of existing ones, and the fact that they often contain mercury, lead and other chemicals, is cause for concern as they accumulate in the waste stream.

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