You probably didn't know this, but if you bought your TV, laptop, or computer monitor in California on or after Jan 1, 2005, you paid an additional $6-$10 fee to help recycle it.

Under the e-Waste Collection and Recycling Act, retailers are required to add a disposal fee to CRT-based (cathode-ray tube, the technology used in most televisions and computer display screens) products sold in California.

These fees are then paid out to qualified e-waste collectors and recyclers to allow an environmentally-safe afterlife for the CRT-based products. In fact, these payouts are making e-waste recycling is a money-making business in California, despite the fact that, even now, only about 10% of e-waste is recycled.

According to the LA Times, California now has 544 collectors and 62 recyclers, up from 150 e-waste collectors and 12 recyclers in 2004.The payouts are what are making e-waste recycling events free -- and more numerous -- as companies can actually make money off the e-waste they collect.

What are these e-waste recyclers collecting? TVs make up the biggest source of ewaste BY FAR, according to statistics from the US Environmental Protection Agency reported in the LA Times. TVs comprised a whopping 55.6% of ewaste in 2002, the lastest year for which stats are avaliable.

Compare that to the 4.4% for personal computers! Actually, if we include computer monitors -- at 5.9% -- in that figure, the whole personal computer ensemble makes up about 10.3% of the ewaste stream, give or take a percentage point for modems, wireless gateways, mice, external drives, etc. In any case, personal computers comprise a much smaller percentage of ewaste than do TVs.

I'm proud to say that I got my TV via freecycle. It's old and bulky, but it shows DVDs perfectly well. Plus, I feel good knowing that I saved this huge bit of machinery from going to the landfill. On top of it all, I saved lots of money.

So don't recycle your electronic goods unless absolutely necessary, and when that time comes, make sure you take it to an e-waste facility -- which is easier to do than ever, now that Amoeba Music will take all your unwanted e-junk during store hours.

[image by David J]