Our View: E-cycling will pay off for environment, consumers

In the hit TV show “Madmen” – which takes place in 1962 – the main character, Don Draper, and his family go on a picnic. As they finish, Don pitches his empty beer bottle into the distance while his wife shakes out paper waste onto the green grass.

The United States’ anti-littering campaigns had already begun by 1962, but many people still weren’t paying attention. How far we’ve come. Or have we? Building up along our roads, and hidden in our weekly garbage, is litter much worse for the environment than empty beer bottles and used napkins. There you can find the innards of old televisions, outdated laptops and obsolete computer monitors. They can contain toxic chemicals, such as mercury and flame retardants.

It hasn’t been easy or convenient to dispose of them, but that will change Jan. 1 when a Washington state law takes effect. Consumers can recycle computers, televisions, monitors and laptops at no charge. (Manufacturers of electronics are sharing the cost of the new program.) In the Spokane area, Goodwill Industries will be one of the major recyclers.

“If you can, hold onto your (electronic) stuff until Jan. 1. Then recycle it for free,” advises John Swiderski, owner of Deer Park Computer Sales and Service.

Swiderski is on the board of the Washington Materials Management and Financing Authority, a bare-bones state agency created to oversee the Electronic Product Recycling Act that passed in July 2006. He said the law was much needed. As a computer store owner, he tracked this “electronic litter” issue for more than a decade.

Customers would bring in old computers and laptops, desperate to get rid of them. Swiderski often took them and used some for spare parts, but increasingly had trouble finding suitable disposal sites for the obsolete electronics.

The law will mean that at least 98 percent of the electronics will be recycled in one way or another. “Less than 2 percent will end up in landfills,” Swiderski pointed out.

The legislation was drafted and passed with little controversy and little publicity. It’s an example of legislation that solves a concrete problem for individuals and benefits the larger community, because proper electronics recycling saves our soil and water from dangerous chemicals.

The challenge now is to spread the word so consumers stop dumping old computers and televisions by the side of the road or inside their regular trash. As of Jan. 1, it won’t cost you anything to get rid of them in the proper way. How far we’ve come.