Foul landfill rules, face fine; Electronics must be recycled

That old, broken television better not find its way into the landfill.

Starting today, it's against the law.

In May 2010, the S.C. legislature passed a law making it illegal for residents to place televisions, computers, monitors and printers in any waste stream that finds its way to a solid waste landfill.

The legislation also required those electronic manufacturers to provide recovery programs for older televisions, computers and printers so they can be recycled.

This change won't affect Horry County's landfill, as the unincorporated parts of the county have been separating these electronics for years and sending them to recycling centers, said Mike Bessant, governmental affairs director for the Solid Waste Authority.

"What's happened is, the cities are getting involved in it now, and starting to separate and they're seeing a tremendous volume increase," Bessant said.

For the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Bessant said the landfill processed 800 tons of electronics for recycling.

Processing the electronics means acquiring them, wrapping them, putting them on a truck and shipping the package off to the recycler.

Temporary labor is used to process all of the increased tonnage from the electronics. Currently, they're packaging two or three days a week, Bessant said.

By November 2010, Bessant estimated the SWA was handling 65 to 80 tons of old televisions and computers a month. Last month, once the municipalities got involved with the recycling effort, they handled 100 tons.

"If that's going to be the norm ... you're talking about almost 1,200 tons a year," Bessant said. "That's a lot of TVs."

Of health and environment

According to information from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control's Web site, the cadmium, lead, mercury and other toxic materials in the electronics can pose threats to both a person's health and the environment in general if not properly managed.

The S.C. General Assembly deemed many old televisions, computers and printers can be refurbished, reused or recycled and putting a system in place for recovering these electronics, "promotes resource conservation, public health, public safety and economic prosperity."

Richard Chesley, with DHEC, said businesses have always had to donate or recycle TVs. The legislation was enacted to close the gap and include homeowners as well.

He said a survey was done recently that found of South Carolina's 46 counties, within the next few weeks, 43 of them will have an electronics recycling, or e-cycling, program in place.

"We do expect a surge," Chesley said.

The process for dealing with recyclable electronics differs between residents and businesses.

Homeowners must recycle their unwanted electronics, while businesses must donate the equipment to an organization, such as a school or church, for reuse, or recycle them, according to DHEC's Web site.

If businesses want to dispose of electronics, they must follow hazardous waste regulations.

Information from the Environmental Protection Agency on e-cycling states color television and computer monitors contain lead in their cathode ray tubes that make the monitors characteristic of hazardous waste. However, the concentrations are very low.

Bessant said, for example, if a motel called and said they had 90 TVs they wanted to recycle, the owner would have to call DHEC because it's against the law for the SWA to take them.

The state has a contract with Creative Recycling out of Raleigh, N.C., to recycle all residential electronics for free, Bessant explained. If a hotel or motel wanted to dispose of televisions, the recycling center could charge them.

"Are some of them getting in there? Absolutely. But they're not supposed to," Bessant said.