Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources is preparing for rulemaking on its state e-scrap recycling program in response to legislative changes last year.
In a March 7 informal public hearing on the scope of the rulemaking, Sarah Murray, E-Cycle Wisconsin coordinator at the department, said the changes include tweaks to how manufacturers targets are set, clarification of reporting and recordkeeping requirements for collectors, and possibly adding more devices.
“We expect it to be a narrow and technical rule,” she said, as the state completed a much larger rule package a few years ago. The hearing was simply to discuss the scope of the coming rulemaking, which will now be presented to the Natural Resources Board for approval.
The state program has been running since 2010 and covers TVs, computers, monitors, printers and video game consoles. It covers households and K-12 school devices only, not business devices.
In 2023, new legislation added peripherals to the list, increased manufacturer fees and directed DNR to create a definition for “good faith progress” toward collection targets, which is the basis for manufacturers who missed their targets to request a waiver.
Murray said the waivers for manufacturer shortfall fees have been in the statute since the beginning, but the department didn’t receive any requests for the first decade of the program because it was collecting more weight than program targets. As devices get lighter and recycled volumes by weight have fallen, more manufacturers are now seeking waivers.
In 2023 DNR published a guidance document on what good-faith progress meant, and it will use that document as a starting point for rulemaking, she said.
In the past, targets were set per manufacturer at 80% of the weight of devices sold during the program period two years earlier. Now there’s an overall state target based on what is received for recycling by weight in the program period from two years before, but individual manufacturer targets are determined by market share.
The rulemaking needs to explore what to do when a manufacturer comes into the program after the market shares are calculated and when and how to adjust all targets for all manufacturers during the year, Murray said.
Another issue to address is the registration of official collection sites, because sometimes third-party sites are registered as collectors without their knowledge, leading to inaccurate weight reporting and even situations where DNR contacts the site for an inspection and “they don’t even realize they’re part of the program,” she said.
DNR plans to clarify which sites can be registered in what ways during this rulemaking, Murray added.
Battery fire risk is another topic slated for discussion. While there’s no one way to tackle the problem, Murray said the department wants to discuss adding more battery-containing devices to the program or enacting landfill bans, which are the two ways the DNR has authority to address the problem.
Vape devices and toys are not on the table, but small appliances are a possibility, Murray said, but the state wants to hear from recyclers and other stakeholders.
“We have to have it in the scope statement if we want to consider it,” she said. “We want to have this dialogue, get some data and see if it makes sense.”
Public commenters asked clarifying questions about the process to add more electronics and the best way to educate residents in the future about the coming changes.
Katie Reilly, vice president of environmental affairs and industry sustainability at the Consumer Technology Association, said the association is “definitely supportive for codifying the procedures” but has some concerns about adding more devices to the program, especially small appliances.
“The list of eligible electronics in Wisconsin is already pretty extensive,” she said, and while CTA is “open to reasonable inclusion” of more items, adding small appliances would add significant volume into the system, which would be paid for by manufacturers who don’t produce small appliances.
