Can someone tell me why it costs the consumer money to recycle this garbage? Does anyone think that the average
American, who doesn’t really give a rat’s behind about the environment, is going to pay one penny to recycle something? If “green” organizations want to protect the environment then they should start recycling for free…until then, don’t give me this garbage about being “green.”

The govenerment and many others are trying their best to satisfy EVERYONE who has to do with ewaste. Just like when you buy new tires most places charge a fee to properly dispose of your old ones, same with car batteries, and other hazardous chemicals and equipment.

I actually have started a non-profit organization locally and we take most everything free of charge. We do charge for monitors and tv’s a small fee, however that not only helps cover the properly disposal fee, but helps pay for our overhead as well. We also bring free computer training and other events to our community. So it is not like people are getting rich off this or anything.

I hate to sound rude to your reply, but if you don’t like it, why don’t you go back to paper and pen or a typewriter. We all have to pay to play, and business’ cannot afford to keep the doors open for free.

OK, I will.
Because industry is actually *subsidized* by your and my tax dollars, to say nothing of our collective ownership of natural resources, when they grind trees, dump acids to create clean, white paper.
It’s a giant, lowest-cost process, this massive logging and milling. Now with recycling, not so simple. Somebody’s gotta collect, sort, then reprocess all the paper waste from all sorts of small raw material locations (your recycling bins, dumpsters, whatever.)
Why would we want to pay more for recycled? Frankly, it’s recognizing the reality that if you don’t support recycling, you’re saving pennies for your personal pocket at the cost of filling up dumps and scalping the forests. In a better reallocation of costs, sure, major industry would pay for the back end effects of producing their products, but that’s what they hire lobbysts to avoid.

[…] I just read something interesting today about the Staples company - they accept all sorts of e-waste at their store whether you bought it there or not. I’ll be posting something about e-waste (discarded electrical equipment like computers and printers) soon, so it’s on my mind, but I thought I’d share this article with you as I think it’s great and should make it even easier to be able to dispose of that toxic e-waste properly. Check out this link […]

Paying to recycle items with obvious residual value is very disturbing. Don’t think for a second that the gesture by Staples doesn’t pencil out for their bottom line. They’re not a philanthropic organization nor idealists. California now charges an $8 recycling fee when buying any electronic device. It’s not clear where this goes because I’m still required to pay to recycle any items. I hope this improves soon.

Not sure about other cities, but here in Phoenix, AZ the city has a hazardous household waste collection days. It used to be called BOPA–batteries, oil, paint, and antifreeze; but has changed to collect appliances. Maybe so they don’t get dumped in the desert.

I’m live north of Birmingham AL, I have a small computer store and get in a good bit of broken monitors and old computers. I dissasemble the computers, recycle the metal at the local recyclers and get a little money off of it. However, they don’t take monitors but staples does, but I am not paying 10 dollars to recycle a monitor when i can barely afford rent. Plus the closest STAPLES is a 45 min drive. I will be glad to collect monitors from customers if there was an easy way to dispose of these for free or even to make a little, but would gladly do it for free. Any locations or avenues for me to follow would be of great help.

For people like “angreen,”
Why should it be free to recycle? It’s costing the recyclers money to recycle these products. We are all in on this together, as a memeber of this planet you should care enough to pay the minute fee that staples is charging. Maybe next time you decide to waste your money on something that you won’t care less about next week you can save that money and put it towards something that will impact yours and all of ours lives. I bet you’ll feel great afterwards.

i know this is hard for some greeners to understand, but money toward garbage is no incentive for anyone. only way to get people to recycle is a. pay them, b. make it free and easy. people are not going to pay to recycle anything on a level that would be worth anything. i don’t care how “good” you feel for doing it, but the majority of people do not have the money to spend on garbage. take my city for instance, there is no recycling place for anything here. maybe aluminum cans, but that is it, we are sending everything except those and scrap iron to the dump. the closest scrap recycling is not too far away so people are making money doing that, but paper and every other household waste goes straight to the dump because we have garbage disposal. you want to make a difference. get recycling centers in all the big cities.

considering that i dumpster dive at serveral staples’ dumpsters and actually recycle the hundreds of printer cartridges they throw out weekly (for my own financial/eco-consciousness benefit of course) as part of their “new green recycling campaign”, i can only view this as an advanced form of greenwashing, especially the fact that they are charing $10 for a monitor!!!!!

the price is absurd….they are profiting in some way from the e-waste, or i doubt they would undertake such an task. Een if they’re recycling some of the components they overcharge the public for, they will most likely throw the majority away.

“The fee, ranging from $6 to $10 depending on screen size, will be collected at the time of retail sale…

Collected fees will be deposited in an Electronic Waste Recovery and Recycling Account managed by the State of California and will be used to provide payments to authorized collectors and recyclers, fostering the development of recycling opportunities and offsetting the cost of properly managing these types of products at the end of their useful lives.

It is important to note that the Electronic Waste Recycling Fee is not a deposit, and that the covered products do not contain “redemption value”, as do many beverage containers in California. Consumers are not entitled to reimbursement of the fee when covered products are recycled. Rather, the intent of the fee is to reduce, or eliminate, the costs associated with properly recycling this material when it becomes waste.”"
source: http://www.erecycle.org

Hopefully Amandi,, the chosen company, is using this money to do all the recycling safely and IN THE US! Currently 80% of electronic waste is shipped overseas to be recycled, while these companies pocket the money.

Interesting discussion. In general, I hope more debate about this ewaste happens so that things get done on a national level to make it free and easy to recycle. I think California has the right idea–pay up front for something that will be a burden later on. It’s stupid to pay to recycle. I looked at an office depot ewaste program to recycle a monitor and found it would cost $15 to get rid of it. Dude, $15 is alot. So I wrapped it up and tossed it in someone else’s garbage bin. Yeah its illegal in my city, but I saved 15 bucks and oodles of time. Guess how many of me are out there… the majority.

First of all, everyone needs to calm down about paying some green to go green. This is America baby and nothing is for free. If you want it done right!! If the “Dude” who dumped his equipment feels good about what he has done, then so be it. But know this, someone, somewhere eventually will be drinking from the toxic water source that his machine was dumped into. (cadmium, copper and 7lbs of lead to name a few) Mighty fine beverage if you ask me!! Then we can all ask him, would he have done the same thing, if someone he knew or maybe a family member grew 8 legs as a result of his lack of knowledge?
The bottom line, we all need to do our part. I work in the industry and from a corporate perspective, companies are spending millions to secure the data properly and dispose of their obselete IT equipment with a possibility to break even if not make a profit from the residual values that some machines offer. (at the moment any machines PIII ,laptop or desktop can get remarketed for $$ whole or torn down that are about 3-4 years in age) Anthing later is considered scrap and should be properly recycled with a company like ours that guarantees-Zero Landfill, Zero Incineration and Zero E-waste export) Not a bad buiness to be in if the volumes are there right? I know money is tight for you people, but if your behavior stays the same then the future generations have no chance, all because of a few million people do not want to shell out 10-15$. Get a grip and make a difference now! Its not too late.