Public shouldn't pay for electronics recycling

SWALCO is being hit with as much as $200,000 in costs for 2015 because electronics goods manufacturers are failing to accept responsibility for their share of the cost of recycling their manufactured goods. The American public is inundated daily with millions of dollars worth of ads to buy, buy, buy, and yet those that are profiting from all that buying now want Lake County taxpayers to pay to clean up the mess that's left when their goods are obsolete.

The failure of electronics manufacturers to live up to their responsibility is an assault on the vision of Lake County and SWALCO as an agency. Illinois state law prohibits dumping of electronics in landfills, so when the manufacturers fail to pay their fair share of the cost of recycling, that cost is pushed onto the taxpayers of Lake County.

Furthermore the failure of the electronics industry to act responsibly is a frontal assault on the five-year plan for Lake County that SWALCO and the county have worked toward for the past 15 years to reduce the amount of material dumped in landfills and to increase the amount of material that is recycled in our community as a whole. SWALCO is between a rock and a hard place.

Tell your state representative and state senator to demand that electronics manufacturers pay their fair share of recycling and stop trying to pass the buck to taxpayers.

Peter Grant

Antioch Township official