New law keeps electronic waste out of landfill

Hundreds of tons of electronics awaits destruction at IMS Electronics Recycling in Vancouver last month. (Photos by N. SCOTT TIMBLE/The Columbian)

Workers at IMS Electronics Recycling in Vancouver tear apart and sort old electronic equipment. After the start of the year, the company expects a huge influx of e-waste when a new collection system takes effect.

A technician pries apart a monitor at IMS Electronics Recycling in a warehouse building leased from the Port of Vancouver.

William Morrison rips apart an audio system at IMS Electronics Recycling in Vancouver last month.

Ferrous metal is magnetized away from the rest of the debris when electronic devices are shredded.

On the spanking-new concrete floor at IMS Electronics Recycling, employees are busily hacking, pounding and stripping apart old computers and TVs.

Business is already booming, but the California-based company expects a huge influx of material when a new state law takes effect in January.

IMS settled in the Port of Vancouver last year, after the Legislature in 2006 passed a law requiring manufacturers to underwrite a statewide electronics recycling program. The law will enable all Washington residents to return old televisions, computers and monitors for free rather than discarding the hazardous material in a landfill.

As one of only two certified processors in the state, IMS expects to process millions of pounds of e-waste after the new law takes effect.

“As soon as ’09 hits, I think the investment of a semi is needed,” said Diana Whiteley, IMS office manager. “We’re excited for that day to come.”

Much of the electronic waste contains lead, hexavalent chromium, mercury and flame-retardant material in the plastic shells. Waste managers worry about it piling up in illegal forest dump sites or being shipped to landfills, where the sheer amount of material poses a threat to leach into groundwater.

Instead, Washington and 16 other states have adopted laws to ensure the material is safely recycled or reused.

“It becomes a commodity rather than a waste,” said Miles Kuntz, manager of the electronic product recycling program for the state Department of Ecology.

The volume of material should be immense.

Already, 212 manufacturers have registered with the state, requiring them to pay into the newly established collection system.

The law established the Washington Materials Management & Financing Authority, which is already billing manufacturers based on estimates of their sales volume in Washington. The authority then will pay collectors, transporters and processors based on contracts negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

Manufacturers should pay between $8 million and $12 million a year to underwrite the system, said John Friedrick, the authority’s executive director. The annual estimated haul of e-waste statewide: 20 to 25 million pounds.

“It’s not a taxpayer-funded program,” said Friedrick, who lives in Woodland and manages the authority from there. “Really, we are a quasi-governmental agency.”

Electronics manufacturers won a concession from lawmakers who approved the new law.

“They thought they could do it better, faster, cheaper. The Legislature agreed,” Kuntz said. “The Legislature set it up so the authority runs the plan, and Ecology runs oversight. They’ve got the experience; we don’t.”

The law requires manufacturers to establish free collection sites in every city with a population over 10,000 and in each of the state’s 39 counties.

Several collection sites have already been established in Southwest Washington. The sites are available on a database maintained at www.ecyclewashington.org.

Clark County’s own five-year-old electronics collection site closed in November, an expected casualty of the new state-mandated collection system. Jim Mansfield, who oversaw the old program for the county, said he’s already involved in recasting the program as a nonprofit organization dedicated to refurbishing and reusing workable electronic equipment.

“Our position is, why recycle it when you can put it to good reuse?” Mansfield said. “We don’t want to see usable computers go to waste.”

Modeled on the eight-year-old Free Geek nonprofit program in Portland, Mansfield envisions co-locating the new organization with a new ReStore planned for Vancouver. ReStore, based in Portland, repurposes building material to raise money for three metro-area chapters of Habitat for Humanity.

“We just thought that, combined, we would really, really help each other build our programs,” said Joe Connell, the ReStore development director.

The state law requires the free return of only televisions, computers and monitors.

For other kinds of material, other organizations are picking up the slack. Rapid Refill Inc. in downtown Vancouver, for example, collects old printers and central processing units at no charge for Free Geek.

“Nothing related to cartridges, printers or CPUs should ever hit a landfill or third-world country wasteland as a result of our lack of responsible action,” Rapid Refill owner Mike Morton said in an e-mail.

Meanwhile, at IMS, workers are gearing up for the new year.

With IMS one of only two processors — the other is in Seattle — the company figures to do quite well processing the material.

In preparation, the company earlier this year installed a $1 million shredding machine. Weighing in at 60,000 pounds, the machine required the port to install a more durable concrete floor.

It takes printers, copiers, fax machines and assorted other electronic junk that can’t be otherwise salvaged.

Workers toss the material on a conveyer belt on one end.

At the other end, the machine shreds and separates material into plastic, nonferrous metal, ferrous metal and dust. Metallic dust is sprayed into a sealed barrel for disposal as hazardous waste.

Company officials say the new state law easily justifies the investment. “It was basically the state law that got us here,” Whiteley said.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551, or erik.robinson@columbian.com.