An industry group has criticized a recently signed bill modifying the e-scrap law in Illinois, saying the state failed to account for existing recycling outlets for CRT glass.
In a letter sent to the Illinois EPA on July 20, a group consisting of 13 electronics recycling companies, including some of the industry's most prominent, argues House Bill 1455 assumes "CRT glass is not recyclable."
California e-scrap processing firm Arrow Recovery received an approval to build what would be its first metals refining operation.
The company plans to erect two buildings totaling nearly 72,000 square feet in the Los Angeles-area city of Fontana. Arrow Recovery, headquartered in the Bay Area, purchased the property in October 2014, according to county property records.
A bill that's passed through North Carolina's Senate would repeal the state's electronics recycling program.
House Bill 765, which passed North Carolina's Senate by a vote of 31-17 last week and aims to cut a number of regulatory provisions beyond those dealing with e-scrap, now sits in the House Committee for the Environment. The 23-member committee is expected to meet July 21 to discuss the legislation and hear public comment.
Draft regulations would require electronics manufacturers to finance the collection and recycling of e-scrap in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
The province's Environment and Local Government department is seeking public comment on the regulations. New Brunswick, with a population of 754,000 people, would be the last of Canada's Atlantic provinces to implement extended producer responsibility for electronics.
An appeals court has let a long-simmering lawsuit against the Basel Action Network go forward.
In a decision reached on June 29, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago affirmed an earlier ruling in granting Intercon Solutions the right to have its defamation case against the watchdog group heard by a state court.
A team of academics has taken issue with a number of key statements on e-scrap exports and generation recently made by the United Nations Environment Programme.
In a post on a scholarly waste and pollution blog called Discard Studies, researchers Josh Lepawsky, Joshua Goldstein and Yvan Schulz make the case that a report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) this spring contains "serious shortcomings."
Vizio has sued the head of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection over an e-scrap law it says unfairly burdens the TV manufacturer.
In a lawsuit filed on June 17 against the commissioner of Connecticut DEEP, Robert Klee, Vizio alleges the state's e-scrap law "is so deeply flawed and unfair that it threatens Vizio's ability to innovate and competitively price its products for consumers."
Dell experienced a year-over-year decline in e-scrap collections last year, but the company still expects to achieve its goal of taking back 1 million tons of electronics by 2020.
That's according to the company's 2015 corporate social responsibility report, which covered the period from February 2014 through January 2015.
The recovery rate for consumer electronics in the U.S. jumped sharply in 2013, but it's unclear whether more robust data accounts for the uptick, a newly released U.S. EPA report states.
The rate was 40.4 percent in 2013, up from 30.6 percent in 2012, according to the report. The municipal solid waste stream included 3.14 million tons of selected consumer electronics in 2013, of which 1.27 million tons were recovered.
Federal officials have allayed concerns that an executive order regarding environmentally friendly electronics purchasing will erode use of the EPEAT program.
President Obama's March 2015 executive order on sustainable-product purchasing excluded an explicit requirement that federal agencies give purchasing preference to electronics meeting the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standards.