Enviropod
Over at slashdot yesterday they covered the issue of who should be responsible for recycling computers.
The answer is the consumer of course, since anyone else will probably not pass the cost on to you in a manner you like, and you should be able to pick what companies recycling methods suit your tastes based on the product you buy.
Interesting that the next day, Apple announces that they will recycling ipods and giving consumers 10% off the purchase of a new one on that day.
Before you applaud them, however, it should be noted this was only done after they got lots of complaints. No doubt this was a pre-emptive measure to keep government from handing down something to Apple that was more costly. I suspect they now figure recycling costs into the costs of the new unit -- ala bottle deposits.
Interesting to note: This means your 100%-dead-got-run-over-by-truck-is-this-even-an-ipod is worth a minimum of about $15. Expect to see dead ipods on ebay more often now.
Apple has always been environmentally responsible, so this was not unexpected.
Ipods contain no lead, BTW.
props TUAW
The answer is the consumer of course, since anyone else will probably not pass the cost on to you in a manner you like, and you should be able to pick what companies recycling methods suit your tastes based on the product you buy.
Interesting that the next day, Apple announces that they will recycling ipods and giving consumers 10% off the purchase of a new one on that day.
Before you applaud them, however, it should be noted this was only done after they got lots of complaints. No doubt this was a pre-emptive measure to keep government from handing down something to Apple that was more costly. I suspect they now figure recycling costs into the costs of the new unit -- ala bottle deposits.
Interesting to note: This means your 100%-dead-got-run-over-by-truck-is-this-even-an-ipod is worth a minimum of about $15. Expect to see dead ipods on ebay more often now.
Apple has always been environmentally responsible, so this was not unexpected.
Ipods contain no lead, BTW.
props TUAW
posted by Rob at 5:30 PM
4 Comments:
Does your wording here indicate that you are opposed to bottle deposits?
Bottle deposit programs, when properly designed, are an excellent incentive-based way to keep the containers from ending up where they are not supposed to be. This post didn't mean to imply a leaning one way or the other, just compare ipod recycling to bottle deposits because in both cases you are pre-paying the recycling fee, since the cost is/will be figured in advance of the purchase.
But as long as you asked...
There are some very poorly designed bottle deposit programs. In some states the beverage retailers just get to pocket the unclaimed deposit funds (New York, Maine and others) or they just turn into a slush fund for local government (Connecticut). The deposit funds need to go into a) the costs of running the program (for private and public entities) and then b) the cost of cleaning up returned and unreturned bottles. If both of these are satisfied and the state finds itself with a surplus of unclaimed funds, the deposit is lowered, rebated, or sunk back into subsidizing container recycling costs. Usually states don't do this- they find other ways to spend the money above and beyond the costs of bottles to the state's resources. At that point it's no longer a bottle deposit, but just another tax, and the state now has incentive to get people to not return bottles.
Several states have very large losses to out-of-state bottles as well.
Interesting. It had never occurred to me there could possibly be unclaimed deposits since, having grown up in Michigan, collecting cans and bottles was a lucrative activity--to the extent you could find any, that is, since everyone else was doing it too. In fact, it functioned like a very small safety net for the poor and homeless. I think the problem of bottles/cans from other states is minimized these days. Most of the big grocery stores have automated systems that read the bar codes on them to make sure (downside is, of course, that you can't crush the cans to where that isn't readable) and smaller stores are savvier about making sure it has the deposit stamp on it. Definitely a bit of a burden for mom and pop operations, but it's also a program that, once adopted, no one really even notices any more. It's just part of the process of shopping. And for the consumers, if the deposit is enough money to be significant to them, it comes out even anyway because they'll hold onto their empties to get that cash back.
Of course, I may have a bit of a personal investment in this (beyond my bleeding-heart environmentalist stance), as my aunt was instrumental in getting the Michigan bill passed in the 1970s--the first of its kind, if I remember correctly.
I think Michigan is one of the states that has a good bottle bill. I seem to recall reading that at least the state can't raid the environmental fund that comes from unclaimed deposits.
BTW, in some states unclaimed deposits are $8-$25 million.
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