Reduce, Reuse, E-Cycle: Wisconsin’s 10 Years Of Electronic Waste Legislation

In 2010, Wisconsin established legislation that banned electronics waste from the landfills. Over those ten years, Wisconsinites have recycled more than 325 million pounds of TVs, laptops, cellphones and more. As one of only 25 states with some sort of an electronics recycling law, Wisconsin is widely considered to have one of the most successful programs in the country. But it isn’t without its challenges.

On this episode, we speak with Sarah Murray, Wisconsin DNR’s E-cycle Coordinator, and Sen. Mark Miller of Monona, the legislation’s author and advocate, to learn more about what E-cycling is, how the last ten years have gone, and how Wisconsinites can help it be even more successful going forward.

Find a location to recycle your old electronics: https://wisconsindnr.shinyapps.io/EcycleCollectorSite/

Read more about E-cycling in Wisconsin in the Fall 2020 issue of Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine: https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/wnrmag/2020/Fall
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TRANSCRIPT
ANNOUNCER:[00:00:00] Welcome to Wisconsin DNR's Wild Wisconsin: Off The Record Podcast – information straight from the source.

Katie Grant: [00:00:12] Welcome back to another episode of Wild Wisconsin: Off The Record. I'm your host, DNR's digital communication section chief Katie Grant. 2020 has been a year for a lot of anniversaries in the world of natural resources. Earth Day celebrated its 50th year along with the EPA, and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

It was also the 30th anniversary of Wisconsin's recycling laws and the 10th anniversary of our electronics waste legislation. For today's episode, we sat down with a couple of people who have been involved with electronics recycling in our state from the beginning, but first – a pop quiz. You just bought a new TV. What do you do with the old one? A) leave it on the wall to use as a place to tape your kids, artwork, B) take it to an electronics recycling collection site, or C) put it in your curbside recycling bin and hope for the best. So what do you think?

"A" might be a great way to reuse the TV, but do you really want two TVs on the wall?

We'd answer "B," taking it to an electronics recycling collection site. In this episode, you'll learn more about why recycling these items makes a lot of sense for Wisconsin's natural resources. To get us started, we sat down with the DNR's E-cycle Wisconsin coordinator Sarah Murray to learn a bit more about what the law includes and why it's so important we recycle these items. Sarah take it away.

Sarah Murray: [00:01:43] Sure. Well, I am the E-cycle Wisconsin coordinator for the DNR, and I've been in that role since the program started in 2010.

Katie Grant: [00:01:54] Yeah. What does it mean to be the E-cycling coordinator? What is a little taste of what is it that you do day to day?

Sarah Murray: [00:02:00] So there's a few different things the DNR does for the E-cycle Wisconsin program. One is we work with all the different groups that need to participate in the program, so collectors and recyclers and manufacturers need to register with us and report to us. So there's administration of that.

During those reporting periods during the year, and then looking at the data, analyzing it, making sure everything is correct, making sure, for example, that we have all the electronics collection plate information correct so we keep that updated on our website for the public, doing other outreach to let people know about the program and about why it's important to recycle electronics.

And then working with my coworkers on the team – we're actually doing physical inspections of a lot of the collection sites and recyclers and answering questions that folks have about the program. So those are some of the highlights.

Katie Grant: [00:03:01] Fantastic. So before we get too far into it, can you tell me a little bit about what actually is E-cycling and what kind of items fall into that category?

Sarah Murray: [00:03:13] Sure. E-cycling is just sort of the acute term we came up with for recycling electronics. And so, as people can imagine, there's a whole lot of things that are electronics right now. You know, almost everything it seems like is starting to have a little circuit board in it and other electronic components.

But when we talk about E-cycle Wisconsin, it was a program set up by Wisconsin's electronics recycling law to specifically collect and recycle a specific list of electronics for households and schools. So we're thinking consumer electronics: a TV, TV accessories, like a DVD player, or even a VCR, computers, including things like tablets, laptops, monitors, computer accessories and desktop printers. So those are some of the things that we're collecting through the E-cycle Wisconsin program and focused on specifically.

Katie Grant: [00:04:06] Why is it so important that we actually recycle these items rather than just tossing them into the garbage can or even throwing them in the curbside recycling bin?

Sarah Murray: [00:04:16] Yeah, there's a couple things there. So in general, it's important to recycle electronics for two primary reasons. One is some of them, especially older electronics, do contain hazardous materials. So the old tube style TVs have up to several pounds of lead embedded in the glass. A lot of the first-generation flat panel TVs and monitors had fluorescent tubes and then continuing mercury. There's other heavy metals, chemical flame retardants and things in electronics.

So we don't really want those just out in the environment or being recycled improperly where it's causing potential harm to workers. We want to make sure they're handled safely. And then the other side of that is nearly everything in electronics can be recycled. So we want to conserve those resources for the program. In the last 10 years for example we've managed to collect and recycle the equivalent of about 47 million pounds of steel, 16 million pounds of copper, 8 million pounds of aluminum, not to mention glass and plastic, and that can all be reused and made into new products.

You asked too about why we can't just put it in our curbside bins. So if you think about a lot of our electronics, like take a laptop – it's just a lot more complicated than a can, or a bottle or a cardboard box. There's a lot of different pieces to it, so it can't be handled in the same facility with the same equipment.

A lot of electronics need some degree of hand disassembly, even though they do also use shredders and other high-tech machines. When we're talking newer electronics with lithium-ion batteries too, we don't want those mixing with other trash or recycling because if the batteries get damaged, like say, if they get crushed by equipment, they can actually spark and cause a fire. And so they need to be handled at a facility that knows to look for those and can carefully remove them.

Katie Grant: [00:06:07] That's a really good point. You know, we've shared before on Facebook, the pictures of dumpsters on fire, for example, because batteries were in there or they got crushed and they did start on fire.  And I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize can actually happen with that.

Sar...