NORWAY – Last week Warren Sessions had to turn away a Norway business that wanted to drop 30 old computers at the recycling site.
Sessions, manager of the Oxford County Regional Solid Waste Corp., said the business didn’t know about recycling laws that prevent businesses, municipalities and school districts from disposing of anything having a cathode ray tube.
In 2001 Maine adopted the Universal Waste Rules saying that devices with CRTs must be recycled.
The general public does not have to recycle the goods until January 2006. Now, people throw them in the hopper and they are crushed and burned.
That makes Sessions cringe.
He said there are 5 to 8 pounds of lead in televisions, computers and other CRT screens that are either burned or buried.
“Incineration is worse than burying them, in my opinion because lead goes up into the air and comes back down in lakes and rivers,” Sessions said.
Harvey Dumont, assistant manager for Norway-Paris Solid Waste, said at least a couple of computers or televisions go into the hopper everyday.
“Some ask about recycling, but most just want to know where to put them,” Dumont said. “Right now, we have no place to put them.”
There will be a place by the fall. Sessions will have a new 20-by-40-foot building to hold CRTs until they can be recycled.
He said many businesses learn about recycling when they pull up to his building.
“The state may have informed them, but with all the unnecessary mail we get these days, that information may have been overlooked.
“People are surprised to find out that they can’t,” he said.
The Solid Waste Corp. serves 19 towns in Oxford County and one in Androscoggin County.
John James, an environmental specialist with the Department of Environmental Protection, said that strictly speaking, it has been illegal for businesses to throw away certain things since July 1980, when Maine’s hazardous waste laws took effect. He said businesses really did not start wide use of computers until the 1990s.
He said more and more computers have been showing up at recycling stations. He said the public and small business in general do not generate hazardous wastes, so in the cases of CRTs they often end up in the solid waste stream.
James said besides lead, computers and televisions can generate cadmium, mercury, nickel and polychlorinated biphenyl.
For more information on universal waste, hazardous waste management rules and computer recycling access the DEP Web site:
http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/hazardouswaste/index.htm#universalwaste
Sessions said he hoped to start collecting universal waste this year, after the new building is completed.
“Businesses are having a hard time getting rid of stuff, so we will be an outlet for them also,” Sessions said. “There may be a charge for businesses, but that has not been voted on yet. It’s up to the board of directors.
“I’m anticipating influx when we first start,” he said.
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