
It's now illegal to throw out rechargeable batteries in New York State - narad
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/a_jolt_to_consumers_--_its_now.html
======
tyree732
I believe this is the wrong approach. The law is mostly unenforceable, and I
imagine it won't lead to a significant reduction in disposed rechargeable
batteries as most people won't encounter the law on a regular basis. A better
approach would be to do something similar to what is done with recycled goods;
apply a tax to the product when it is first purchased and refund that tax if
the product is returned at an appropriate facility.

~~~
drunkpotato
While I agree that this is the wrong approach and your solution is an
improvement, I don't think it's much of an improvement. It shares the same
flaw in thinking as the fine: you are attacking the problem from too many
angles. Every single person has to alter their behavior for it to work.

I think a much easier to implement, less wasteful, and much more likely to
work solution is single-source waste disposal and recycling. Charlottesville,
VA has this: you throw away everything, and the city outsources sorting and
recycling to a single-source waste disposal company. Their job is to recover
as much money as possible from recyclables.

And the best part is that to improve the efficiency of single-source
recycling, you only need to improve your sorting and recycling technologies.
You don't need to improve the accuracy of every human who throws away
recyclables, which the history of recycling tells us is highly costly while
also highly ineffective.

~~~
zoul
You mean that people just don’t sort their garbage at all, the company does it
for them? Is it technically plausible, with decent material recovery levels?
Don’t the recyclable materials lose value by putting them together with
regular garbage?

~~~
drunkpotato
> You mean that people just don’t sort their garbage at all, the company does
> it for them?

Yes, precisely. The usual caveats apply: no hazardous waste (hazardous
chemicals, biohazard waste).

> Is it technically plausible, with decent material recovery levels?

It seems to be, based on Charlottesville's experience. I don't know the
recovery levels. That is a good topic for research.

> Don’t the recyclable materials lose value by putting them together with
> regular garbage?

They do, but my understanding is the lost value is much less than relying on
residential pre-sorting of recyclable materials. The idea is not to compare
the efficacy of single-stream with a hypothetically perfect human recycler,
but with recycling rates in actual practice among residents after decades of
attempted recycling education.

I was told by a reporter in Charlottesville that single-stream compares
favorably, but I am having trouble finding actual rates for comparison in my
quick Googling today. So if you're interested, take my comment as a basis for
further research into the issue.

------
zdw
If the fee goes to pay for say a monthly home pickup of hazardous waste, I'm
all for this.

Most people don't know about what they're throwing away, and often don't care
- they just want it gone. I don't blame them - the right way to get people to
do something is to make it easy to do.

~~~
steamer25
I do like the idea of using fine money to benefit the perpetrators and/or
mitigate the offense. Otherwise, for crimes that aren't serious enough to
warrant jail time, the revenue can become a misincentive/conflict of interest
for those who should be providing justice to engage in extortion.

Let those who receive the benefit of enforcement pay for it (i.e., taxes).

The specific case I usually think of is speeding tickets. In my opinion, those
fines should be ear-marked for passing lanes, rumble strips, guard rails and
other projects to reduce travel times while increasing safety for motorists.

------
darklajid
I'm surprised. For as long as I can remember, disposing of any battery was
only allowed in special places/bins. Batteries never belonged into the trash
for me.

And .. quote:

"The act does not cover batteries or battery packs weighing 24 pounds or more;
batteries used as the principal power source for cars, boats, trucks,
tractors, golf carts, wheelchairs or other vehicles; batteries used to store
electricity from solar or wind-driven generators; or batteries that provide
backup power an an essential part of an electronic device."

Doesn't this basically make this one giant mess, defeating the good intention?
So any normal battery, any rechargeable battery that you loaded from a solar
panel, the real messy big ones etc. - are still unrestricted? Hilarious.

~~~
SamReidHughes
My clock radio has an internal battery that lets the clock and alarm operate
even when unplugged. Presumably it recharges. How are consumers going to even
realize that such a battery exists, when throwing the device in the trash? Are
they to be expected to disassemble the device and remove the battery?

~~~
darklajid
Well.. You probably won't like my answer, but here it goes:

Don't throw that stuff in the trash in the first place. Really.

I understand that this is common in lots of places (here in Tel Aviv recycling
seems to be a joke as well), but I think that stinks. I'm not a nutjob or a
treehugger, but really, some things should be handled differently (and with
care) if you want to dispose it. It's relatively easy to do it on your end (if
the relevant education is in place. Talking about dos and don'ts - no offense
or derogatory meaning implied) and a hard and messy job on the other side of
the trash processing.

What would I do in Germany? Well, trash is already separated in special
plastic things (the yoghurt you just ate? The container is not trash) and
'normal stuff' (think everything non-toxic that remains).

If you want to throw away big things (furniture, TV): Call the municipality,
they'll come to your home and get it. For free, a couple of times per year
(free is a lie: That service is already paid for by you anyway).

Want to throw away smaller things? Batteries? Shops that sell batteries have
to take back old ones. Every now and then you'll have the opportunity to drop
off small gadgets and related things, usually at a van/truck that goes around
(and helps educating about recycling as well).

Last option: You can drive up to the (no idea how you'd name this correctly)
garbage place and bring your stuff. They'll let you (free of course, with the
same caveat from above) dispose everything and show you where to place wood,
where you'd drop electrical devices, where metal should end up.

It works. Germany's not that small and I don't think it's too much effort for
the individual (again: I'm lazy. And not a tree hugger in any way). I know
that a lot more countries do comparable things.

This law that started the thread? It sounds weird if you have the background
described above. It looks like a crappy half-baked idea - neither particularly
helpful nor enforceable. And obviously, as you just proved with that question,
going against the general public's idea of how to handle your garbage.

------
nknight
Reading the text of the law[1], I'm surprised battery manufacturers haven't
already filed an interstate commerce lawsuit.

States can usually place all the restrictions and requirements they want on
retailers and residents, but trying to force out-of-state manufacturers to
perform in-state acts like this is sticky.

[1][http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/batterylaw...](http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/batterylaw.pdf)

~~~
CWuestefeld
The regulations for CAFE -- car emissions -- are far more onerous than this,
and they've been completely litigated and found to be Constitutional.

IIRC, it was found that so long as there's a strict hierarchy of standards
(i.e., non-disjoint), it's OK, because a manufacturer can aim for the most-
strict regulation, and thereby be legal everywhere. The problem would be if
the standards were such that two _different_ products needed to be created in
order to satisfy the requirements of different states.

~~~
nknight
You're talking about a related but distinct legal issue. CAFE is an exercise
of Congress's commerce clause power, and as part of that power, they have
_allowed_ states to set stricter standards. Had they not specifically done so,
states would not have that authority, as federal law would preempt them in
that area.

The issue here is that there are, in fact, certain federal laws regarding
toxins in general, and batteries in particular, that might lead a court to
conclude that federal law has preempted state law in this area. Congress's
choice _not_ to require battery manufacturers to take certain steps is not the
same as Congress abdicating that authority to the states.

I'm not saying this is cut and dried, or that they'd likely win, I'm just
saying it's sufficiently fuzzy that I'd expect the lawsuit to be filed.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_Congress abdicating that authority to the states_

That's an odd phrase, in the presence of the 10th Amendment:

 _The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people._

The Congress doesn't get to decide what power it will exercise, and leave the
crumbs for the States (at least not in theory). The States and the People have
decided what powers to grant to the Federal Gov't, and so Congress is limited
to that scope.

(Yes, I'm aware of preemption in various matters, I'm objecting to the
implication in your statement that Congress gets to decide what the States'
rights are.)

~~~
mikeash
Congress gets to decide which rights the states get when those rights are
originally given to Congress, as is the case with interstate commerce. Nothing
in that post implied that Congress can do this with everything.

