The City Council voted on Wednesday to establish one of the nation’s toughest recycling programs for electronic gear, employing an approach that lawmakers said would allow them to move forward with most of the plan while continuing to work through the most controversial elements.
Last month, the Council approved a bill that would have required electronics manufacturers to devise programs to collect old equipment from New Yorkers, imposing fines on consumers who tossed products into the trash and on manufacturers who failed to take back stated percentages of their goods.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg objected, saying that requiring companies to collect a portion of merchandise sold could penalize them for customers’ failure to recycle. Environmental groups said collection requirements were needed to compel the companies to comply.
To avoid a protracted battle, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn withdrew the original bill and reintroduced it as two pieces of legislation, one that begins to establish the program and that Mr. Bloomberg has agreed to sign into law, and one that sets collection standards that he is expected to veto.
“What we recognized in the work and debate around the e-waste bill was that the Council, the environmental community and the mayor were in agreement on about 90 percent of the bill,” Ms. Quinn said at a City Hall news conference. “Whatever ends up happening with the challenges around that 10 percent, 90 percent of the program will be in place: New Yorkers will have a place to take back e-waste. They will no longer be putting it on the street, which means it ends up in a landfill and pollutes our city.”
New Yorkers purchase more than 90,000 tons of electronic gear each year, the Council found, most of which eventually ends up being crushed along with regular trash, releasing toxic substances like lead and mercury.
Under the proposal, which was approved 47 to 4, electronics manufacturers would devise and run programs that could include curbside pickups, neighborhood collections and returns by mail and in stores. Consumers would be required to participate, and by 2010 would face a $100 fine for throwing old computers, televisions and other gadgets into the trash. Manufacturers who fail to recycle returned merchandise could be fined $1,000 for each violation. The programs would require Department of Sanitation approval.
The plan also envisions requiring manufacturers to take back a stated tonnage of equipment or face fines, an element that has angered suppliers, who say it would be hard to track sales in the city. Under the proposal, manufacturers would have to take back enough electronic equipment to equal 25 percent of the average weight of goods they sold over the previous three years, rising to 65 percent in 2018. Kate Sinding, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, praised the Council’s efforts in the second bill to include mandatory collection standards in the program. She called such standards “key to a strong, effective recycling program.”
Mr. Bloomberg has promised to veto the bill that outlines the standards, which the Council will override, Ms. Quinn said, setting in motion a cycle that could lead to court battles over its constitutionality.
Nonetheless, lawmakers said they were prepared for the fight.
“The only way we’re going to make sure manufacturers change their practices is to have clear performance standards they have to meet in terms of how much they recycle,” said Bill de Blasio, a Brooklyn councilman and the prime sponsor of the measure.
“When that starts to really take full effect, it’s going to change the way people manufacture. It’s going to encourage manufacturers to reutilize their components, and that’s going to have a huge long-term positive impact on the environment.”
