SSFF: "NY e-Waste Law is a Disaster?"

Live Presentation by NYDEC

I'm 'live blogging' during a presentation by Mark M. of NYDEC here at the NY SW Federation conference (Sagamore).   Slide one:   NY legislation allows OEMs to claim tonnage from businesses with fewer than 50 employees, colleges, and schools.

Missing slide:  NYDEC does not release the numbers for obligations for the OEMs (as of May), and tells them there is no penalty for not meeting tonnage the first year.  If the manufacturer doesn't know how many tons they are obligated to collect, well, they will pay for the CHEAP tons (computers not curbside TVs).  Our expensive TV recycling is without a "sponsor".

Missing slide:  Outcome - My company drops its largest municipal contract.  After not getting paid for months, we can't expect the OEMs to pay us if they don't have their obligations released.  We should have dropped the TV tonnage months ago and concentrated only on business and college institutional tonnage.


Missing slide:  We were suckers to collect curbside TVs for as long as we did.

Bitter?  Moi?  I'm just reporting on the sour grape harvest from here on the front lines.  I'm sure they have plenty of reasons to call this NY Product stewardship law a success.   But there are signs that they don't know what they are doing, and are making it up as they go along.