AUGUSTA – A report says Maine’s 2-year-old law to promote recycling of used computers, televisions and other electronic waste has kept a million pounds of lead out of the environment.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine says the first-in-the-nation program requiring manufacturers to set up and pay for collection and recycling centers has ensured safe recycling of more than 8 million pounds of toxic electronic waste, saving Mainers $3 million.

State Rep. Jon Hinck, D-Portland, a former council attorney who pushed for the law’s passage, says that by acting early, “Maine avoided a tsunami of e-waste.”

The council says Maine’s e-waste law has been a model for laws in 11 states and New York City, which now have e-waste laws in place. Fifteen other states are considering bills.

Locally, as a result of the law, residents recycled 2,200 TVs and computer monitors in Auburn last year. Since June 2006, they’ve recycled another roughly 6,200 in Lewiston.

In his city, that amounted to 100 tons of waste that skipped the landfill, said Rob Stalford, superintendent of the Lewiston Solid Waste Recycling Facility.

At the Sandy River Waste Recycling Association, manager Ron Slater figures they filled four or five tractors with e-waste in 2007, about 32 tons.

Sandy River covers 21 towns, most in Franklin County. He sees more old TVs than anything else. It’s clear by the condition and the age, some lingered in basements for years before the law changed and they became easier to dispose.

“We see some real old stuff. Some of the big old consoles that take three men and a boy to lug,” Slater said.

He’s anticipating another bump next year as some people switch from analog to digital TVs and scrap their old sets.

“We’re prepared to do as much as we can to keep them out of the landfill,” he said. “I think the law is working very well.”

Slater has toured the New Hampshire company that picks up their old monitors and TVs and “de-manufactures” them.

“They take the computers apart, break screens, remove lead from screens and sell it back to people who make new screens,” he said. “They take the TVs apart down to nothing,” then recycle everything.