Electronics bill passes in North Carolina

The North Carolina State Legislature has passed a bill that addresses the recycling of electronic scrap in the state.

Senate Bill 887, sponsored by Senator Don Vaughn, is an amended bill that has passed the state legislature that now waits the Governor’s signature for the bill to become law.

The bill seeks to have the responsibility of handling and processing the obsolete electronics shared between electronics manufacturers, retailers, consumers and the local governments.

Under the bill, a manufacturer can handle the collection program for the obsolete electronics, or they can pay for local governments to do more of the heavy lifting for them.

For manufacturers, the law requires they register with the state. The manufacturer must develop and submit a recycling plan to the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resource and pay an initial registration fee (with subsequent annual registration renewals). The amount of the fee would be contingent on the type of recycling program developed.

There already is a North Carolina law banning the disposal of televisions and computers that begins next year. The law requires manufacturers to create a recycling plan and pay annual fees, which are distributed to local governments for recycling programs.