Archives for October 2006
GVRD Legislates Recycling of E-Waste
15 October 2006 | miscellaneous, news, vancouver | No Responses
I mean, I think that’s what’s happening, anyway… According to Dave Watson (of Dot Comment fame), the GVRD has passed legislation that will soon require e-waste to be diverted from the regular waste stream (yeck - a garbage stream) to soon-to-be-created official drop-off facilities.
I did a little research (and I mean a little), and I turned up this article (from my old employer, the North Shore Recycling Program, no less!) that seems to confirm Dave’s good news. According to the article, the GVRD, in partnership with Encorp Pacific & the EPSC, will be implementing an electronic product stewardship program by summer 2007. While the fine details of the plan are still being developed, it looks like the first instance of the program will allow for recycling of the basics: personal computers, monitors, televisions, laptop computers and printers. The program will be financed in part by ‘environmental handling fees’ that will be collected on all electronics products at the time of purchase. (For more info, check out the EPSC website.)
I think this is great news. I used to work at a recycling facility in North Van where one could only recycle computers as scrap metal, while tv’s, printers, etc. were just plain garbage. Obviously there’s a lot of valuable material that can be reclaimed from these things, but there’s never been an infrastructure here that allowed for easy collection & reclamation. This new partnership will mean (literally) tons of waste diverted from the garbage dump. Huzzah!
