This month the north-eastern state has made some alterations to its e-scrap legislation, offering flexibility for OEMs with independent plans.
E-Scrap News reports this week that Rhode Island has OK-ed changes to its e-scrap law, which was initially passed in 2009 and last updated in 2013. The new changes require “certain manufacturers to join the state-run collection program while allowing more flexibility for OEMs running independent plans.”
According to the e-scrap law, manufacturers must fund the collection and recycling of “computers, monitors, TVs and several additional electronic devices at end of life.”
Previously, the Ocean State’s e-scrap program “has had problems with manufacturer targets not keeping up with the actual amount of covered electronics entering the waste stream.” This is an issue that other states with similar programs have also encountered, and has, in other years, forced collection sites to close in the middle of the year without funding.
Now Senate Bill 888 “expands the “covered device” categories, specifying tablets are included and creating a pathway to add printers into the state program.”
Printers, which make up to 10-15 per cent of weight collected in Oregon, “are a growing portion of the return stream in other states” according to the National Centre for Electronics Recycling. They will be added to Rhode Island’s list of covered devices from 2020 if they “grow to 20% or more of the total returns of covered electronics.”
Other updates featured in the change to Rhode Island’s legislation include “a new allowance for manufacturers to come in either 10 per cent under or over their weight-based collection”, allowing them to then carry those credits or deficits through to the next year.
Additionally, “TV manufacturers with a market share of less than 5 per cent must participate in the state-operated program”, although this bill “allows TVs to be counted as orphan waste if their manufacturer has gone out of business or cannot be identified.”
Product Stewardship Institute (PSI), a US non-profit group that promotes EPR legislation, revealed its dismay at the fact that “printers were not added outright” but said that “the 10 percent allowance provisions will provide more stability to OEMs running their own plans.”
“Manufacturers must collect a predetermined number of pounds each year, and this frees them from the confines of the annual calendar while still meeting the requirements,” said Sarah Bonelli, PSI’s Associate for Policy and Programs.
However the bill has been opposed by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), “which represents OEMs and advocates on legislative issues nationwide”. CTA’s Vice President of Environmental Affairs and Industry Sustainability, Walter Alcorn, saying that the bill creates “unnecessary burdens to Rhode Island’s e-waste programs without increasing opportunities for electronics recycling to Rhode Island residents,” adding, “The law should focus on products that need help to be recycled and should not include products which the market currently takes care of on its own”.