County, Albion village seek state remedy for TV recycling

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 26 May 2015 at 12:00 am

ALBION – The Orleans County Legislature and Albion Village Board are both pressing state officials to update a law for recycling TVs and other electronic waste.

The state on Jan. 1 began banning curbside disposal of older TVs with cathode-ray technology. Many residents have upgraded from those televisions, switching to popular flat screens. Many of the older TVs have been dumped in ditches along rural roads, local officials said.

Municipalities would like to help residents properly get rid of the older televisions without it being an expensive burden. The state said manufacturers were supposed to take back older TVs, but the state capped the amount of discarded material companies have to accept each year.

Manufacturers have been hitting that cap midway through the year, Orleans County legislators said. Once the cap is hit, “cash-strapped” local governments are left to bear the burden, county legislators said.

“The issue is exacerbated by the fact that electronics currently sold today are much lighter than the obsolete CRT devices that make up about 70 percent of the weight of e-scrap generated, which are cost intensive to responsibly manage,” according to a resolution passed by the County Legislature and also the Albion Village Board.

“As a result, may local governments across the state have grappled with the burden to fund or cease e-scrap collection, which has been particularly difficult in rural communities that do not benefit from retail collectors or economies of scale,” according to the resolution.

The County Legislature and Village Board are asking Gov. Cuomo, the State Legislature and State Department of Environmental Conservation to work towards a long-term solution for electronic waste recycling for both urban and rural areas.