Thompson Electronic Waste Statement

Thompson Electronic Waste Statement

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) is a founding member of the Congressional E-Waste Working group and the sponsor of the National Computer Recycling Act (H.R. 425), his statement as prepared for delivery before the Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee can be found below.

Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me here today to comment briefly on electronic waste - or "e-waste". I appreciate Chairman Gillmor and Ranking Member Solis allowing me to be a part of the first congressional hearing on the subject of e-waste, a subject I've been involved with since I was first elected to Congress.

Electronic products are becoming smaller and lighter, but they also are creating an ever-growing environmental and waste disposal problem. That's because it's often cheaper and more convenient to buy a new PC or cell phone than to upgrade an old one.

Today, the average lifespan of a computer is only two years and Americans are disposing of 3,000 tons of computers each day. Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, recently estimated that the typical household could expect to discard approximately 68 electronic items over the next 20 years including: 20 cell phones, 10 computers, 7 TVs, 7 VCRs or DVD players and several answering machines, printers and CD players.

While e-waste contains a number of valuable materials that are recoverable - including aluminum, gold, silver and other metals, it also contains a witches' brew of toxic material - such as lead, mercury and cadmium. If not properly disposed of these toxic materials can cause health and environmental problems. For example, the glass of a typical computer monitor contains six pounds of lead. When this glass is crushed in a landfill, the lead escapes into the environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), lead becomes hazardous to human health when one is exposed to only 1.5 ounces of its dust.

There's a Native American proverb about stewardship, which says: "We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

To give you an idea of the potential legacy we are leaving future generations, the National Safety Council has projected that approximately 300 million computers are obsolete. If all 300 million units were discarded, this would involve nearly one billion pounds of lead, two million pounds of cadmium and 400,000 pounds of mercury.

We've done little to address the problem of e-waste on a national scale. Although some retailers and manufacturers have created voluntary recycling programs, they are too small in scope to make much of a dent in the e-waste stream. Without a national recycling infrastructure - collection programs, disassembly facilities and reprocessing plants - consumers and businesses today are left with few choices for getting rid of their old computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. Most people shove them in a spare closet or corner and wait. When people do try to dispose of their e-waste responsibly, all too often it is shipped overseas. There, it and its toxins can land in riverbeds or in the hands of unprotected workers.

The buildup of e-waste on the local and state level has led California, Maine and Maryland to implement their own e-waste laws - each very different from one another. Twenty-six additional states are also considering e-waste legislation. As states continue to develop their own approaches the need for a federal solution only grows. Without federal action both consumers and businesses will have to contend with an unmanageable patchwork of state laws. This might also put many U.S. manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage if they have to juggle multiple state regulations.

My colleagues and I formed the Congressional E-Waste Working Group with the objective of investigating possible federal e-waste solutions and educating Members of Congress about the issue. At our first event, a forum entitled, "E-Waste: Is a National Approach Necessary?" we invited all stakeholders, including consumers, manufacturers, retailers, recyclers, environmentalists and nonprofits. All agreed to the value of a national approach to e-waste.

I thank the subcommittee for bringing much needed attention to this issue and to allow us to gather expert testimony on the problem of e-waste. I - and other members of the E-Waste Working Group - look forward to working with you to find a comprehensive way to reduce e-waste in a way that considers the interests of all stakeholders.

http://mikethompson.house.gov/newsroom/index.asp?ID=51