Recycling law may stem ‘tsunami’ of discarded TV sets

Photo: H2OAlchemist, Flickr

“We’re expecting a tsunami of stuff,” state Rep. Paul Gardner, DFL-Shoreview, told the Star Tribune last month. The former executive director of the Recycling Association of Minnesota, he predicts a spike in analog TV sets hitting recyclers as the digital TV conversion deadline approaches.

A four-month delay of the mid-February switchover passed in the Senate Monday would seem to lessen the severity of that storm into a mere squall, but this afternoon House Republicans shot down a similar effort to extend the deadline, leaving the Feb. 17 transition in place.

With just three weeks to go, it raises a few questions. Will consumers opt for converting their old analog TVs or end up ditching them for newer digital-ready sets? If so, how big will the spike in discarded and toxin-laden televisions be?

The picture on that last question is fuzzy, according to local government officials, thrift store owners and landfill operators who’d likely be processing discarded sets.

Dwight (who wouldn’t give his last name), the attendant at the Burnsville Sanitary Landfill, said, “There’s probably more [TVs dropped off] than usual.”

But Mary Sherman, manager of the Savers thrift store on Minneapolis’ Lake Street, said the expected “deluge” of analog sets coming into the store didn’t come to pass. “There are more coming in, but not what I was thinking. I think maybe people are converting more than anything else,” she said.

Likewise, Susan Young, director of Minneapolis’ Solid Waste and Recycling Division, said, “Amazingly, our TV pickups are down right now.”

The city, which includes the disposal of appliances like TVs in regular solid waste fees paid by residents, is seeing far lower rates of appliance and metal pickups than the average, she said. The city usually has around 400 such pickups a day, but now that number is between 50 and 60 daily, Young said.

By contrast, the Twin Cities Salvation Army has seen a 30 percent to 40 percent increase in TVs left at their “in-demand donation sites,” the drop-offs not monitored by employees.

Three months ago, the organization stopped accepting TVs, says John Hulteen, director of operations at the Minneapolis Adult Rehabilitation Center, “because it becomes nothing but an e-waste product for us.”

Disposal of such TVs can cost $15 to $20 per set at area recyclers, but the Salvation Army has a deal with a recycler who charges 12 cents per pound. Currently, Hulteen says, the eight-store network pays nearly $4,000 each month in recycling fees.

Same for Hennepin County, which partners with the city of Minneapolis in recycling appliances. Last year, the county had 12 percent more pickups compared to 2007, said Amy Roering of Hennepin’s Environmental Services division. In 2008, 50,005 televisions were collected — 5,400 more than the year before. (Since 2001, Hennepin County has collected 278,379 sets for recycling, Roering added.)

That volume of discarded televisions could pose serious environmental problems. According to John Nordwell, owner of Hopkins’ Avista Recycling, “There’s lead in the tubes, and in the green board, there’s material that’s not good for the ground.”

But little of it will actually get into the ground. Thanks to legislation banning electronics dumping in 2006, the 2007 signing of the Electronics Recycling Act, which requires manufacturers of monitors and TVs to “collect and recycle 60 percent by weight of their products sold in Minnesota,” numbers are way up for recycling programs, according to a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) report.

According to data provided by the MPCA’s Garth Hickle, the first year of the Act saw 153 collectors pick up a whopping 33.4 million pounds of such devices statewide.

As for Rep. Gardner’s “tsunami”? Reached by email this week, he was optimistic about recyclers’ ability to deal with discarded TVs.

“The good news is that the collection programs have been in place for awhile, a lot of consumers have gotten rid of their stockpiles and the recyclers are ready,” he said. “So hopefully the tsunami will end up being just a big wave.”

Photo: H20Alchemist, Flickr