SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis signed the nation's most comprehensive law Thursday to speed recycling of discarded computer monitors and televisions, an estimated 6 million of which are stacked in California offices and homes waiting to be tossed.
The law aims to shrink that stockpile and detoxify future waste -- which cannot now be dumped in California landfills because that could endanger groundwater -- by imposing a fee on new products to pay for recycling, forcing manufacturers to stop using lead and mercury, and setting standards when computer monitors are dismantled in foreign countries.
Consumers can expect to pay $6 to $10 more when they buy new televisions and computer screens after next July 1 if manufacturers won't absorb the charge.
Heralded by some environmentalists, the new law is described by experts as the most far-reaching attempt to tackle electronic waste in the country. No other state imposes a fee on new computer monitors and televisions to pay for recycling, and no other state mandates that manufacturers match the European Union goal of eliminating lead, mercury and other toxics from computers and televisions sold by 2007.
The California law also stands alone in requiring that computer manufacturers who ship old equipment overseas for dismantling prove that the foreign recycling operation meets environmental protection standards set by an international organization.
With the electronics industry churning out faster and fancier computers and televisions, the pile-up of castoffs is a nationwide problem. More than 50 bills were introduced in 29 states this year to consider the problem, but none of the others goes so far as the legislation Davis signed Thursday. A national computer recycling bill introduced in March by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), which would impose a fee on new computer monitors to fund recycling, is before a House committee.
"California is pretty much on the forefront," said James Cox, who tracks legislation nationwide for Goodwill Industries International.
Davis signed SB 20, by Senator Byron Sher (D-Stanford), after last year vetoing a less comprehensive bill opposed by most of the electronics industry. The new law is in some ways more burdensome to the industry, but few manufacturers actively opposed it, other than Hewlett-Packard Co., which operates its own recycling program.
