DAY THREE
E-WASTE BOX: WHAT IS E-WASTE?
What is e-waste?
It depends who has it, and what they’re doing with it.
E-waste is seen as a form of hazardous waste under Colorado law – but only if it’s generated by businesses or government agencies, rather than households.
A used computer, cell phone, or other device becomes waste “in the process that somebody decides it’s no good anymore,” says Joe Schieffelin, an official at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which oversees e-waste.
Under this logic, governments or corporations can legally sell untested or broken electronics by the pallet. That’s because if somebody buys it, then it’s not waste, since somebody has decided that it is good enough to pay for.
But buyer beware: Let’s say you buy a bunch of used computers from a government auction. You take the one that works, and dismantle the rets to make money from parts. At that point, like Cinderella, the technology turns into e-waste. You could be on the hook for illegal treatment of “commercially-generated” hazardous waste – even though it was not waste when you bought it. If caught, you might have to pay fines of as much as $25,000 a day.
As confusing as it is, the law is also mostly hypothetical. The state regulator has never punished anyone for illegally dumping or mishandling e-waste, officials said.
– I-News