Most states have some way to deal with obsolete electronics, through public or private facilities that reuse them or to recycle them, according to the Electronics Industries Alliance, whose Web site gives names and addresses of places people can take their old PCs.
The states with no place to take used electronics include Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to the site.
If a national program comes about, it should not only encourage recycling but also promote "stronger design changes" to make electronic devices less environmentally hazardous, said Scott Cassel, director of the Product Stewardship Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
And forcing customers to pay could be a deterrent because few would do so, said Mark Kennedy, a technical adviser for the California Integrated Waste Management Board. That's why Murray suggests the cost of recycling a product, from US$10 to US$25, be included in the price of buying it, instead of at the end of its life.
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