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New York State law currently puts the onus for disposal of old TV sets, a form of hazardous waste, on TV manufacturers. Through a concurrent ban on curbside residential refuse collectors taking TV sets and computer monitors, somehow the state managed to produce a new, recurring cost for counties — and occasional messes in woods, ditches and other open areas where these old, clunky boxes lay because their owners didn’t know what else to do with them.

New York State Association of Counties is pressing the state legislature for two action items on the e-waste recycling front: Changes in state law to make electronic product manufacturers still more liable for e-waste, and funding for counties and sub units of local government to recoup their costs for managing hazardous e-waste. In 2015, Niagara County taxpayers shelled out $60,000 for this. NYSAC’s approach is half right, at least. Counties, cities and towns should be reimbursed for their spending on behalf of residents to keep everyone complying with the state’s e-waste recycling mandate.

As for increasing mandates on equipment manufacturers, however, this seems impractical and too much like passing the buck. Existing law has manufacturers on the hook to take back a certain amount of old TV sets, and mostly they’re complying — but thanks to a complicated formula that measures volume of waste versus numbers of sets, the manufacturers aren’t making much of a dent in the mountain. Existing law also requires manufacturers to inform the public how to junk unwanted equipment, and accept comparable discarded products when returned by consumers. Quick question: Who’s actually doing that? Reading the fine print to find an address, boxing up that old TV and having it shipped to Zenith, that is. It’s so much easier to wait for your county or town to call a collection day — or just do some midnight dumping.

Instead of saddling manufacturers with responsibility for e-waste, let us accept that recycling of electronic goods to keep toxic metals out of landfills (and groundwater) is a public good in which every resident has an interest. Therefore, said recycling can be secured appropriately on the state’s / all New Yorkers’ dime. Instead of new regulations — and more bureaucracy to haunt equipment manufacturers — let’s embrace an enforcement model that puts counties in charge of e-waste collection and recycling, and has the state picking up the tab in full.

NYSAC’s latest testimony to the state, this past February, does not calculate the statewide public cost of e-waste disposal. A sampling of counties’ self-reported annual costs shows they’re all over the place, from roughly $30,000 in Cayuga and Madison counties (mean population 75,000 each), to $159,000 in a three-county North Country compact (population 258,000) to $1.2 million in Westchester County (population 973,000). In each case, the tab is driven by the extent of public outreach that a county chooses to make, as well as the deals it is able to strike with e-waste recyclers.

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