Senate Panel Approves E-Waste Bill

Date: December 11, 2009

Source: News Room

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved legislation that will fund research and recycling of electronics wastes. The Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act is intended to provide research grants to address e-wastes. Many electronic devices contain hazardous substances such as lead, chromium, cadmium, mercury, beryllium, nickel, and zinc. The idea is to create strategies to recycle these often valuable substances and avoid landfilling these items where they would potentially threaten the environment.

The EPA estimates Americans generated 2.9 tons of e-waste in 2006 and that nearly 250 million computers will become obsolete in the next five years. Currently we only recycle about 11 percent of them. The transition to digital televisions on top of the transition to plasma and LCD technology has escalated the volume of these wastes. But computers aren't the only culprit. The EPA estimates that mobile phones will be dumped at a rate of 130 million per year.

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