Comments on: Is a PC landfill tax inevitable?

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh digs into a proposal to clean up a landfill mess caused by electronic junk.

e-machine monitor

I have an extra e-machine monitor - hardly used - new condition. Who wants it - free?

[roughrider152]

E-machine monitor

Hello Jane I saw your posting for the e-machine monitor, and i am very interested. If you could get back to me on how much you would like that would be great. I would even pay postage, shipping and handling.

Free Monitor

Thats a good Idea Jane but where are you ?? I am
retired in San Diego, CA.

e-machine monitor

I too am retired. I live outside Chicago, but I have a son in Pacific Beach.

[Ernest LeFebvre]

Electronic equipment disposal charge

Alberta has recently imposed a surcharge on the sale of all new
electronic equipment sold in the province since February 1,
2005. I am not sure of the dollar value of the surcharges but I
think it may range from $5 for a portable computer to $45 for
the in-home media centre televeisions.

[Walt Connery]

You make good sense on several levels...

It's refreshing to see the notion that taxes are rarely coupled to the solutions they are levied to provide at long last filtering down into the mainstream consciousness. Governments consume resources and wealth at a prodigious rate, and they are growing far too fast these days. Since government does not create wealth but rather consumes it as it grows, politicians and bureaucrats are forever looking for reasons to levy new taxes to swell their coffers so as to create the appearance that their deficit spending isn't as egregiously offensive as it is.

"Fear mongering" about practically any matter at all has become the device of choice these days in order to raise the only source of income governments have--taxes--while for political purposes they wish to create the illusion of the "tax cut" at the same time...;)

When taxpayers begin demanding that the politicians they elect (who in turn oversee the unelected bureaucrats who actually spend the money and run up the deficits) be constrained to a *budget* to accomplish their goals on pain of being fired and replaced for failure--perhaps then the government will actually accomplish that which it sets out to do. Until then, though, we can only look forward to tax & spend, tax & spend, in perpetuity, with each year politicians casting about for new ways and means to tax the citizenry in an ever-upward and never-ending spiral. The short of it is that politicians are far more motivated by problems than they are by solutions.

[David Arbogast]

Will I get my $10 back?

Obviously, adding $10 to the price of anything with a CPU is a simple grab for money. But if the EPA intends to make good on their proposition, they would need to use the $10 to launch a cleanup of dumps around the US. Great... more jobs for Americans... digging through unsanitary garbage dumps... sounds like a government job all right. Too demeaning for Americans, perhaps? Will the illegal immigrants with new worker cards take these jobs and get paid by the taxpayers? *shakes head*

What I want to know is... if I pay my $10 when I buy a monitor, and then recycle or donate it INSTEAD of throwing it in the dump, how do I get my $10 back? Obviously.... it isn't needed if I'm not dumping my monitor, Right?

I have no problem...

I have no problem with a pre-charge for recycling the electronics I buy. However, that money needs to go to build facilities that I can take the item too when I am done with it to get rid of it instead of tossing it in the trash. I don't care what they do with it after I give it to the recycling center, but it needs to be easy for consumers to get rid of the equipment when they are done with otherwise it will continue to go in the trash.

Robert

coporate tool

"A new report by Dana Gattuso of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute"

it's laughable that in order to refute the reasons why burying toxic waste in the ground is bad the author has to resort to using the report of an obvious PR front for the polluters. what's up Declan, was the Tobacco Research Institute not available to help you out by letting you use some of their time-tested scientific research?

shoddy journalism

hear hear! Declan just pulled a "Crossfire" by failing to address
or outline the real issues, rather than writing something useful
and productive. This article is a shameful, unthinking free
market myth knee jerk reaction.

Lifecyles of all products around the globe need to be assessed
for their environmental and social impact from cradle-to-grave.
This just makes sense. Adjustments can frequently be done
without too much long-term disturbance to the business and
consumer. We all, businesses included, need to shoulder
responsibility for keeping this world together. Costs can be
shared. Don't let these businesses scream and run from their
duty, and don't let consumers do so either. And don't pull out
that free market bull***. There's no such animal.

[declan00]

corporate tool? not quite

You're mistaken at multiple levels. First, I acknowledged that lead etc. could be a problem if it leaked out of the landfill. Second, I praised *taxes* if done at the state level -- hardly an extreme position.

I have no problem citing CEI's work, which largely involved a summary of peer-reviewed papers.

Instead of kvetching about some purported bias, why not try to talk about the actual science? Oh, I know: it would take actual work, rather than just flaming.

The point of landfill avoidance

Our PCs and other electronics contain metals and other resources that have been extracted from our planet. It is shortsighted, not sustainable, and even stupid to use those resources once and then gift wrap them in a landfill. This one-way street of extraction, short-time use, then landfill has got to stop.

an alternative to landfills

A new website--throwplace.com, allows it's users to list
outdated computer equipment to help keep these products
out of landfills. I donated 2 old monitors and was happy
with the results.

http://www.throwplace.com

[drewu]

what point?

If we end up needing those metals again, they're gift wrapped (as you said) in a land fill, for easy extraction again.