First Day of Vermont E-Waste Disposal Ban

Happy New Year.

As of today, it is illegal to dispose of "e-waste" in Vermont.  Of course, most of you haven't been disposing of it anyway.  Vermont already had one of the highest recycling rates per capita in the USA for "e-waste".  Some counties have already had waste bans for several years, and most people here prefer to recycle (or donate their computer for repair and reuse).

In 6 months, the state will take over much of the management of the electronics from the private sector.

To qualify as a vendor for the state program, we are doing the R2 paperwork for our reuse friends and partners overseas.  It's very expensive, but worthwhile.  We need to qualify these overseas companies in order to provide peace of mind to our clients, especially original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) whose programs we manage in Rhode Island, Maine, and New York.

Oddly, when it comes to our home state of Vermont, these R2 certifications of overseas reuse partners are not worth doing.  That's because, in the current draft of the Vermont "E-Waste" Program proposal document, it's like California - anything which is reused is dis-included from the collection fees.  That means that you are collecting material, in a truckload, not knowing what is reusable, and must then track back the weight of anything you sell for refurbishment.  Interestingly, the state law S.77 does not require this, it was created by ANR.  Since non-local reuse is allowed under S.77,  it's probably a big opening for independent plans.

So in other words, the state of Vermont requires us to certify R2 downstream markets if we reuse, but does not allow us to bill for that, only to bill for destruction.   If you did want to bid to be the official state operator, and you want to keep your reuse markets, say in Egypt and Indonesia, here is how it would work: