Materials for the Future Foundation

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Materials for the Future Foundation

• A California Up date

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Mission of Materials for the Future Foundation

• Combine environmental goals of resource
  conservation and recycling with economic goals of
  job creation and community economic development.

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MFF Electronic Recycling Projects

• 1998 Curbside Collection in San Francisco
• 1998 Waste assessment at Goodwill San Francisco
• 1998 Residential curbside collection in Oakland
• 1998 Residential Drop of in Hayward
• Continue to work with community based non profit
  computer recycling programs
• 2000-01Electronic Recycling Infrastructure
  Working Group
• 2001Electronic Recycling Environmental Preferable
  Purchasing Working Group

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• CA Drop-Off Pilots 2000/2001

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Challenges of building an electronic recycling
Infrastructure in California?

• Labor
• Regulatory interpretations
• Compete with overseas markets

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Infrastructure Challenges

• No CRT glass to glass options on the West Coast
• 25 to 35 dollars per monitor to ship to
  Envirocycle
• .25-35 cent per pound to send to smelter
• Electronic recycling requires an inexpensive
  labor force for collection and disassembly
• Prison
• Third World Countries
• Community based employment Training Programs
• Electronic recycling services and processors lack
  consistent standards

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Infrastructure Challenges Continued...

• Donating the computers collected from City
  residential programs to schools is unrealistic.
• Schools only want Pentium or better.
• Software Licensing
• Recipients of donated computers are technically
  in violation of the law by using software.
• Hard drives are frequently erased and alternative
  operating systems are not readily available
• Small quantity generators
• There are no recycling services for small
  businesses who generate too much to participate
  in City sponsored residential drop-off programs
  and too little to contract with a professional
  recycler.

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Regulatory Challenges

• In a letter to Materials for the Future
  Foundation, the California Environmental
  Protection Agency recently confirmed that CRTs
  have always been ban from California landfill.
• Most landfill operators, waste haulers, recyclers
  are in violation of California state and federal
  hazardous waste regulations.
• Cal-EPA does not have resources to enforce the
  law and proposing legislation to develop new
  regulatory framework.
• Two legislative options are being floated
• DTSC draft legislation deregulates hazardous
  waste handling and imposes a universal waste rule
• Californians Against Wastes draft legislation
  includes provisions for pollution prevention fees
  on CRTs and extended producer responsibility

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Action Steps Disposal fee

• Due to the ban, landfill operators will begin to
  charge for CRT recycling as an interim measure.
• What can be done to bring down the cost?
• How can the cost of recycling be shared with
  manufacture?
• How can the disposal fee be used to invest in
  infrastructure?

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Action Steps Labor

• Disassembly is labor intensive. How can we bring
  down the cost of labor without depending on
  prison labor, or cheap overseas labor?
• How nonprofit community based training
  organizations be used more effectively?
• What type of equipment investments are needed by
  recyclers to bring down the cost of labor.