NC House should reject plan to end funding for electronics recycling
From the same state senator who brought forth the bill to intrude on local government rights by resetting the election of Greensboro City Council members comes another doozie. Sen. Trudy Wade of Greensboro, a Republican, has managed to get a piece of legislation through the upper chamber that would likely result in additional fees for average people.
In a bizarre bill, Wade would have computer equipment and television manufacturers take a pass on helping with the cost of recycling their products sold in North Carolina. The fees those companies pay help cover the expense of local electronics recycling programs. Without those fees, local governments would have to take money from elsewhere in their budgets, which means the public likely would pay to keep the programs going.
Wade acknowledged that the manufacturers wanted something done about the fees but said she didn’t know which companies were pushing the change. That strains belief. This bill has special-interest pressure written all over it.
The recycling programs have been working well for five years, since a bipartisan group of legislators passed the fees and programs into law. About 30 million pounds of electronics merchandise was recycled last year, an astonishing three-fold jump since the beginning of the program. Interestingly, some of the legislators who voted for that good law have voted to repeal the fees for the manufacturers this time. Curious. Very curious.
The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources isn’t taking a stand on this idea. Again, that sounds like a response, or rather nonresponse, to special-interest pressure.
Only the state House stands in the way of this foolishness. Molly Diggins, director of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, had this one exactly right when she said, “The bill seems intended to completely dismantle an established and successful statewide electronics recycling program.”
Backers of this change may not care about that, but they’re not going to like it when the public blames them for additional fees shifted to consumers in order to give big business yet another break.
This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 6:50 PM with the headline "NC House should reject plan to end funding for electronics recycling."