governments failure to be proactive on the CRT disposal issue

Several of my friends were commenting on the pheasant "summit" that the state of Minnesota just held concerning the lack of suitable habitat in the state for this game bird and one of them stated "shouldn't have this happened in the 1960s before wall-to-wall cropping came to be?" This lighted me up about governments at various scales being reactive instead of proactives and I brought up the CRT disposal issue. I've included my entire e-mail response below. A couple of things first:

I work for a governmental entity (a non-regulatory one) so my screaming is not totally out of context; I've seen the bureacracy and bureucrats in action. Good ideas can get stiffled and good people frustrated.

Second, I don't know all the ins and outs of various states regulatory aspects when it comes to CRT disposal. Maybe some are in fact proactive and have something in place as I suggest in my e-mail. If I can think up a potential solution in 10 minutes, there may be good people & agencies around the country that have as well and have it implemented, I don't know.

Thirdly, my slam about New York is not directed towards the people (a lot og good people there) but towards the state government, which from an outsider looking in, seems very busy-body to get involved in most people's lives. Perhaps this observation is not accurate or has more shades of gray than I can imagine. Life often is that mix.

Anyway, here's the e-mail I sent back to my friends:

Doing what most governmental entities do best, being reactive instead of proactive. I hope something positive comes from it but the fact is that MN will never be the pheasant state it once was unless a whole lot more money actually buys a landscape pattern of parcels and puts it back to decent pheasant habitat. And unless someone like a pheasant Warren Buffet materializes, its not going to happen.

A classic example of reactive vs. proactive is how small time scrappers (either as a hobbyist or a small business) try to deal with "junking" CRT (mostly old tvs and monitors). After the recyclables are taken out the person is left with a big old picture tube that has lead and other heavy metals in it. It is now "verboten" almost everywhere that these go to the landfill, although modern EPA blessed landfills are very good at entombing materials within them and the chances of the Pb or other heavies getting "loose" in the environment from such places is nearly nil. And we've known for how long that there was Pb and other stuff in this glass?? No proactive thinking like slapping a surtax on new tvs and monitors of a certain amount that would handle the cost of either melting/smelting these metals out of the glass of old ones or crushing/entombing the glass were its no longer a hazard. No, that would be too easy. Let's make it really complex on both the national and state scale (especially in pseudo-communist states like NY) and make the little guy go into debt for each CRT handled and trying to get rid of them the proper non-subsidized way or the unintended consequences of renegade private citizens dumping their old CRTs in the ditches when it comes to the point of waste disposal entities charging to take these devices. Taxing every user on the front end when getting a new one is much more effective than "taxing" on the back end.

But, no, national EPA and state agencies can't be that proactive. They'd rather "regulate" and fine people handling these items and trying to make a little money in the waste stream. Because in reality most politicians and bureaucrats really don't give a s*** about an issue (unless it can get them more money for their campaign chest or more money for their agencies) and aren't really into problem solving but "management" of the problem with the proper paper work carefully filled out and stamped. This issue hasn't actually burned me yet as I'm very small time and can get rid of my scrapped out CRTs through a free drop-off (so far so good not being called out for being a repeat "customer") with the city. But a lot of other good people that I know of in other states are being squeezed. Stupidity in the name "of the people" really chaps my bag. Sorry for my Friday rant!

Well once we grant amnesty to our own slaves, we wont need to ship the stuff to china... there fore making the recovery costs sustainable for long term . My other idea is to use natural geologic features as a landfill base and use the crushed crt s as a lead liner for a nuke waste storage site. Just stirring the pot here....

On tje phesants, i feel your pain. Natural local game species managment has never been a priority. The damming of tje Columbia has ruined the greatest fishery in the lower 48, it will never recover with western civilization pressures for resources managing the water levels for agriculture and power generation qith barely a afterthought given to game.

since you bring up the issue of properly recycling crts... you're right. 100% right. Politicians and bureaucrats would rather sit there and tax/levy/fine the crap out of us instead of trying to come together and solve the issue at hand. That issue right now is obviously the overwhelmingly high amount of crt tubes and how to properly recycle them. This nation as a whole is never going to 'get it' when it comes to properly recycle anything. There needs to be a national recycling program that's made up of scrappers and companies willing to sit down and fix these issues. It needs to be fee free but at the same time stringent so as not to let everyone in who says their a scrapper(it's how corporate corruption starts), otherwise we're going to end up like that village in China with EWaste everywhere.

-Matt

Thanks for the comments guys! I was specially thinking of you guys that do this full time or as a major part of your income. It seems that the small business guy tries to do it the right way but the cards are stacked against them. Everybody buys big screen electronics so put a very small extra tax on them and dedicate that towards getting rid of the old stuff right. To me, it seems like a straight forward type of solution although I'm sure there would be some technical details to be worked out. Maybe the problem isn't "sexy" enough to make tv news (no irony there, huh!) but the various bureaucrats notice because getting paperwork "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed is their life. Just crazy...

I would say .... be proactive ! ;)

You plant a seed and if it lands in fertile soil it will grow .... and grow .... AND GROW !

It's like that with government programs of any kind. They start out small and harmless enough but over time they take on a life of their own. Once they're firmly rooted they're pretty hard to kill.

What you eventually end up with is a form of government called a bureaucracy. It's a form of government in which the department heads of all the different bureaus make most of the important decisions and set public policy. If the leadership is excellent this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There's one problem .... our form of government is a representative democracy. If we want a bureaucracy we should vote on it as a people and make the appropriate changes to our constitution before handing the power to run things over to them. ( I don't see that happening. )

Long story short .... don't plant that seed ! Assigning responsibility to the government isn't the answer to all problems.

We might consider developing some industry standards here. If we govern our behavior accordingly there might never be any need for government intervention.

it'd be nice if that worked in a perfect world, but our government's known for sticking its nose where it doesn't belong

Quite true ... it isn't a perfect world and we already have a mess on our hands that needs to be cleaned up. The government is already involved. There are a lot of state programs underway across the U.S. The potential for something good to come from it is there if they manage it wisely.

The point i'm trying to get across is : Let's take a step back and re-think things a bit. Whenever somebody says that there's a problem the first answer that often comes to mind is that we need a new law or a new department within government to deal with it.

Instead of doing that ... why don't we ask what WE can do to deal with it ?

It seems irresponsible and selfish for someone to just scrap what they can from a TV and leave a trail of toxic waste in their wake.

Perhaps we could make another choice ? That way the government would have no cause to be getting up in our stuff ?

I agree 100%. I believe those set up as a recycling center/refinery should have the necessary tools to be able to dismantle this stuff properly and safely. I was reading that some outfit in Arizona was offloaded a bunch of tubes to another outfit somewhere in the states to be recycled. Exported is more like it >.<

What to do with all that heavy leaded glass? One word comes to mind.
Fukushima.....

Proactive? At school when I was 8 we were doing a anti smoking class, making posters etc.
They asked "whats the best was to stop people smoking?"

I suggested "That we raise the minimum smoking age from 18 to 19 at the end of the year and raise it by one year every year afterwards."
If that had happened, the youngest smoker now would be aged 55......

In the immortal words of George Carlin: Gotta get em' while they're young !

Our early influences have a profound effect on how we look at things. That's especially so in school where we're socialized and conditioned to one day become good citizens in the society we're a part of.

It was a little different here in the states. Every day, for at least ten years, we started off with the pledge of allegiance to the flag. It went as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Our country was founded on some pretty radical ideas for their time. It was about the notions of freedom,liberty, and a profound regard for the inherent human right of self determination.

Part and parcel with having the freedom to make your own choices comes the responsibility for those choices.

If you leave a toxic mess of TV parts in your wake it's your responsibility to clean them up.

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

We might consider developing some industry standards here. If we govern our behavior accordingly there might never be any need for government intervention.

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Well said. Action is needed buy the people the issue (crt's) concerns.

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

In the immortal words of George Carlin: Gotta get em' while they're young !

Our early influences have a profound effect on how we look at things. That's especially so in school where we're socialized and conditioned to one day become good citizens in the society we're a part of.

It was a little different here in the states. Every day, for at least ten years, we started off with the pledge of allegiance to the flag. It went as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Our country was founded on some pretty radical ideas for their time. It was about the notions of freedom,liberty, and a profound regard for the inherent human right of self determination.

Part and parcel with having the freedom to make your own choices comes the responsibility for those choices.

If you leave a toxic mess of TV parts in your wake it's your responsibility to clean them up.

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Teaching them young is a start. But continued awareness is also important. Not mention a great selling point. When people know you do your best to properly dispose of or recycle they want to do business with you. I find that a lot of people are just total interested in what I do as a scrapper.

Scrappah- What you say would work if EVERYONE (and not just scrappers) but EVERYONE would think as proactively as you do. But that's not reality and never will be. I suspect that most big CRT electronics aren't touch by scrappers in their disposal so yes, we as a group or the industry could be very proactive and most of the stuff would still be just thrown away. That's why there is a place for a well thought out and executed gov program. Most of the big regulatory happy states often have programs already in place such as municipal or county transfer stations where other recyclables are sorted out of the waster stream. And maybe the CRT electronics are being grabbed there and taken care of properly, I don't know. In my state, there is nothing like that. Our garbage gets "touched" twice if we live in a city and have trash service; once by the customer (producer of the waste) and once by the hauler. The hauler takes it directly to the landfill. Their loads are spot checked to see how much recyclables are in it and I suppose how many nasties. From such inspection their dump fee rates are determined.

My metro area has been proactive in electronics waste as it has a free drop off service for people who want to take it in. Where it goes downstream in the waste system, I don't know, maybe the city would tell someone where and who gets the electronics, maybe not. My state has thousands of miles of gravel township roads and I see an occasional big item, including electronics, in the ditches once in while. I suspect more would go into the ditches if more rules on disposal are inacted or actual fees got charged. Not what I would like to see but just reality. I think a lot of CRT type of things on farms and in small towns end up in someone's ravine in a pasture. Very few eyes watching out in the countryside...

Things are starting to happen (a little) from the manufacturers of modern electronics and other things. They call it "life cycle design" or "sustainability" or other buzzwords. They think a little about what might happen at the end of life of the widget they are working on, and how different choices of design affects the recyclability (is this a word?) of the widget. Not sure how successful this has been, other than reducing the amount of valuable stuff in the design. (like gold on CPU's!)

Obviously, TV tubes were obsolete even before this idea was thought of.

Its too bad that there wasn't a way that someone could take TV tubes, separate the leaded glass from the regular glass (I understand that some of the tube is made from non-leaded glass, but could be wrong) and THEN simply reduce the volume the leaded glass took up by crushing and/or melting it.

You would end up with either gaylords of crushed leaded glass or leaded glass blocks. And a little metal from the guts of the tube to help pay for it. I'm guessing the crushed glass would be a little more toxic because of the larger surface area of the glass, presenting more surface for lead to leach from. But melting the glass might give off toxic fumes...

But one would end up with a compact raw material that could either be readily stored for clean up in the future or re-used for other things that required leaded glass.

Its not a complete solution but it gets the tube to a point that it does not take up large volumes of space.

Unfortunately, there is no way to fund this kind of work without governments to help. We've come full circle with the recycle tax idea on stuff that is hard to recycle. Just like tires.

Until then, its fair game for a big company to set up shop who can afford the technology to separate the lead from the glass, and then stick it to every schmuck who wants to responsibly recycle their glass. Until the collective "we" can encourage two or three competitors to set up their own plants to drive the price of leaded glass down or, better yet, PAY a little for it.

Jon.

Whats that? Oh, sorry....END OF RANT.

I don't see why the glass in CRT's can't be recycled into decorative glass items or used as an aggregate in cement. It would also seem that it could be used as an insulator for electrical equipment.

Guys .... I've got a few simple suggestions.

1: As much as i would prefer to reduce the size & scope of government there are a couple of things that seem to work here in Maine.

We do have state mandated drop off points for electronics. It seems to work however i have no idea where the tv's are going.

We've had an automotive battery recycling program in place for as long as i can remember and that seems to work well. When you buy a new battery you pay a ten dollar fee. When any scrapper turns in an old battery he gets a ten dollar bounty.

If they had a ten dollar bounty on crt's it would be open season. :cool:

2: I really feel that we're making proper CRT disposal far more difficult than it needs to be.

There are plenty of industrial uses for leaded glass. The main reason they use it is to reduce radiation hazard. (Lead leaching out of the glass doesn't seem to be a problem at this point.)

This is simple as pie. Just use the ground up CRT glass as an aggregate for making concrete. Use that kind of concrete as radiation shielding at nuclear waste sites. This would effectively re-purpose the leaded glass into a useful product with very little energy expenditure.

The heck with melting it down into other products. That's expensive and wasteful of our energy resources.

* disclaimer * This looks like a workable idea but it should be thoroughly lab tested before putting it into practice.

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Originally Posted by t00nces2

I don't see why the glass in CRT's can't be recycled into decorative glass items or used as an aggregate in cement. It would also seem that it could be used as an insulator for electrical equipment.

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Great minds think alike ! :)

( We posted at about the same time.)

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Originally Posted by t00nces2

I don't see why the glass in CRT's can't be recycled into decorative glass items or used as an aggregate in cement. It would also seem that it could be used as an insulator for electrical equipment.

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I think it's more about the phosphorus dust inside the tube rather then the lead because lead in small amounts isn't that harmful(if it were, crt's wouldnt've been built in the first place). I read somewhere that some places add a mineralized liquid to the tube to bring all that dust to a solid at the center so that it can be treated as it is. The lead on the other hand I don't get how they'd get out but then again, I've seen too many youtube videos of folks just smashing the glass into pieces and recycle the pieces as glass(not saying I'd do that, just what I found).

Well ... they've been processing the CRT's on an industrial scale for awhile now. I haven't verified it, but my understanding is that they were processing old CRT's and making new ones until flat screens came along.

Point being: They've probably already figured out how to deal with the toxics inside the tube.

This seems like more of an economic problem where the big processors were going bankrupt because it wasn't profitable to do that kind of work.

Scrappah
I followed our local transfer stations crt disposal chain. Here All crt's pulled from the waste stream are shipped to a facility in southern NH.There the crt's are ground up and then shipped to nulife in NY.
probably the same for Maine, NH, Vermont but not 100% sure can't see anywhere closer to ship them to unless Maine puts them on a boat.
Economics you got it
Only government can run an operation that takes a consistent loss, and should for the good and health of the people and environment

That's interesting that they do that but doesn't surprise me - the facility they build in Duinkirk can handle alot of crt glass.

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Originally Posted by NHscrapman

Scrappah
I followed our local transfer stations crt disposal chain. Here All crt's pulled from the waste stream are shipped to a facility in southern NH.There the crt's are ground up and then shipped to nulife in NY.
probably the same for Maine, NH, Vermont but not 100% sure can't see anywhere closer to ship them to unless Maine puts them on a boat.
Economics you got it
Only government can run an operation that takes a consistent loss, and should for the good and health of the people and environment

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This just keeps getting deeper and deeper. :-/

It's no secret that i'm no big fan of government involvement because it tends to create problems not solve them.

If you check out most of the "bubble back" tv's and computer monitors going into the waste stream they're still working. The reason they're being replaced is because they've been made obsolete by government decree.

This goes back to the Clinton era. There was the mandate that all of the broadcasting stations had to switch over their equipment to send out their signal in HD by a certain date. Then there was that government program where you could send in and get a coupon for a free converter box so that your analog tv could still receive the signal but that kind of setup doesn't work well if you're more than 60 miles from the broadcast station. ( In this area, it's all but useless.)

It looks like the guvmin't got the ball rolling on this cluster***k.

I think we can all agree that this issue is a huge toxic waste problem that's a threat to people & the environment ?

I have found the solution! This instructable says it all (jack**s of the year award):
http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn...to-A-Fish-Tan/

Daddy, why does my fish have cancer???

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

This just keeps getting deeper and deeper. :-/

It's no secret that i'm no big fan of government involvement because it tends to create problems not solve them.

If you check out most of the "bubble back" tv's and computer monitors going into the waste stream they're still working. The reason they're being replaced is because they've been made obsolete by government decree.

This goes back to the Clinton era. There was the mandate that all of the broadcasting stations had to switch over their equipment to send out their signal in HD by a certain date. Then there was that government program where you could send in and get a coupon for a free converter box so that your analog tv could still receive the signal but that kind of setup doesn't work well if you're more than 60 miles from the broadcast station. ( In this area, it's all but useless.)

It looks like the guvmin't got the ball rolling on this cluster***k.

I think we can all agree that this issue is a huge toxic waste problem that's a threat to people & the environment ?

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For the record it was the invention of the LCD that made CRT tvs and monitors obsolete, not the government. True they pushed to get one into every home in america, but it's more the evolution of electronics rather then program intervention.

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Originally Posted by NHscrapman

Scrappah
I followed our local transfer stations crt disposal chain. Here All crt's pulled from the waste stream are shipped to a facility in southern NH.There the crt's are ground up and then shipped to nulife in NY.
probably the same for Maine, NH, Vermont but not 100% sure can't see anywhere closer to ship them to unless Maine puts them on a boat.
Economics you got it
Only government can run an operation that takes a consistent loss, and should for the good and health of the people and environment

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So they grind up the CRT whole?

I agree, a bounty would fix the problem, but put the squeeze on the big glass recyclers. They have the money to lobby lawmakers; to help their bottom line. We could try to use the same approach; as a grass roots effort. I firmly believe in the recycling to help the planet; I just want to make a little profit doing it.

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Originally Posted by logansryche

For the record it was the invention of the LCD that made CRT tvs and monitors obsolete, not the government. True they pushed to get one into every home in america, but it's more the evolution of electronics rather then program intervention.

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Are you really sure ? It's hard to figure the broadcasting industry voluntarily incurring the cost to change their equipment over. If it hadn't happened that evolutionary branch of electronics would have died.

Look at it another way .....The consumer wouldn't have gone out to buy High def gear if the signal wasn't available for it. The broadcasters wouldn't have changed over to high def if there was no consumer demand for that product.

By that reasoning it comes down to the government forcing the matter. The guvmin't seems to be the one most directly responsible for instituting the change and all of the toxic waste that was generated by it.

I wonder if the thing that motivated them to force it was energy efficiency. These new flat screens are remarkably energy efficient. They've got the old crt's beat hands down in that department.

Isn't that the truth, makers are sacrificing picture quality for it though. My main tv's a 32" Sony CRT that has better picture quality then my father in law's flat screen(and no dead pixels to worry about). It's also why all my computer screens are still running CRTs instead LCDs.