Solid Waste in New England

Residential Collection of Household End-of-Life Electrical and Electronic Equipment Pilot Collection Project

The attached Background Information and Executive Summary of the report provide information describing the project. For a copy of the report in its entirety, please contact Chris Beling (beling.christine@epamail.epa.gov or 617-918-1792) .

Background Information

As the Information Highway becomes more and more a part of our everyday life, it seems that computers and electronic equipment are on every desktop, in every retail store and, more and more, in every home. The ingenuity and productivity of the computer and electronics industries produce machines that do more work than ever before, and do it faster. However, this amazing technological proliferation raises a new concern: what happens to all of this equipment when it is no longer useful?

One promising solution -- a solution EPA is taking a close look at -- is the recovery and recycling of used electrical and electronic equipment. Unwanted or unneeded equipment can be used to provide a number of benefits. Functioning equipment can find new homes in schools and with community groups. Equipment that doesn't work can be taken apart or "demanufactured" so that the component materials -- glass, metal, plastic, etc. -- can be recycled into new computers or other products. In fact, there is a growing industry that does just that -- providing thousands of pieces of useful equipment by recycling components of older electronic products.

Unfortunately, little information exists on what happens to computers and electronic equipment at the end of their useful life, making it difficult to establish effective measures to promote their recycling. In order to generate data about the fate of such equipment, EPA sponsored a series of residential collections of used electrical and electronic equipment that took place in 1996 and 1997 in Somerville, Massachusetts and Binghamton, New York. As a result of these collections, for the first time there is now data on the type and amount of material collected, transportation and demanufacturing costs of the material, and the percentage of recyclable materials in such equipment.

This report provides detailed information on these efforts. Additionally, it provides essential information on how communities might undertake an electronics project -- helping communities and entrepreneurs determine the economic viability of residential electronic equipment recycling.

This project is part of the Computer and Electronics Sector of the Common Sense Initiative (CSI), EPA's flagship program for developing more flexible, innovative approaches to environmental protection. Launched by EPA Administrator Carol Browner in 1994, the Common Sense Initiative involves bringing together representatives from federal, state, and local governments, environmental advocate organizations, labor, and industry to create cleaner, cheaper, and smarter ways to protect public health and the environment.