Walgreens recently agreed to pay $3.50 million to settle a lawsuit alleging company employees dropped electronics, batteries and other hazardous materials into dumpsters headed to municipal landfills. | Sundry Photography/Shutterstock
Retailers in recent months have agreed to pay over $8 million to settle accusations they illegally landfilled electronics and other hazardous waste in California. In one case, trashed e-scrap was suspected to have ignited two fires.
CalRecycle staff said their recommendation to raise payment rates was based on updated cost data submitted by e-scrap collectors and processors, as well as other factors. | DAMRONG RATTANAPONG/Shutterstock
Citing difficult market conditions and rising costs for the industry, California officials will greatly increase the rates they pay e-scrap firms to collect and recycle electronics.
Data shows that the total pounds processed through California’s electronics recycling program have been falling since 2012. | Boonchuay1970/Shutterstock
This article has been corrected.
Over the past three years, fewer of California’s CRTs are going directly to hazardous waste landfills and more are flowing through intermediate glass processors, state data shows. But that may not mean more glass is ultimately being recycled.
The owner of an e-scrap collection company will pay restitution after pleading guilty to fraudulent business practices. | VN Photo Lab / Shutterstock
This story has been updated and corrected.
The owner of a defunct Orange County, Calif. company must pay more than $150,000 in restitution after investigators found he defrauded the state’s electronics recycling program.
Regulators are looking at lithium-ion battery labeling requirements, but improper collection of the batteries is just one of their recycling challenges. | Allyson Kitts/Shutterstock
California officials are considering regulating lithium-ion battery labels, but an e-scrap processor says they’re missing a bigger issue: Battery-containing electronics are increasingly expensive to process.
Improperly disposed lithium-ion batteries can be a fire risk at e-scrap facilities. | anantachat/Shutterstock
Legislation making lithium-ion battery producers responsible for collecting and recycling the products they sell is advancing in California.
California regulators plan to lower the fees consumers pay to fund electronics recycling. The issue? The state is accumulating too much money.
California’s e-scrap program took a hit when ECS Refining closed in June 2018, but it was anything but a critical blow. Other local and national e-scrap companies took up the slack.
A major retailer will pay $7.4 million to settle allegations it again broke California law by illegally tossing used electronics and hazardous materials in the garbage.
Additional data protection and privacy laws are coming to San Francisco and elsewhere in the Golden State.