Beginning tomorrow, B.C. residents can take their unwanted televisions, monitors, personal computers (PCs) and printers to a series of drop-off depots that will sort and treat the discarded electronics for recycling, or burning at a smelter.

The province joins Alberta and Saskatchewan as jurisdictions that have already implemented an e-waste recycling program, with Nova Scotia and Ontario to follow suit with their own electronics recycling programs next year.

The move to get electronic material out of the waste stream has been championed by environmentalists, who say that e-waste releases an abundance of toxic metals such as lead, mercury, lithium and cadmium into the environment.

However, going green comes with a cost. B.C. residents will pay a levy on all new consumer electronics that are affected by the program, ranging from $5 for a laptop to $45 for a large TV. The fees will go toward the administration, collection and transportation of the materials in the Return-It Electronics Program. Supporters of the levy say it could eventually force manufacturers to design safer and less toxic electronics.

"If you buy a piece of equipment today, at some point when it's dead, it will need to be disposed of," said Malcolm Harvey, spokesman for Encorp Pacific Canada, the federal non-profit agency that is managing the provincial program with the Electronics Stewardship Association of B.C.

Rachel Kagan, the Retail Council of Canada's national manager of government relations for the environment, supports the levy. "The levies are not a tax, it's a fee for a service for the responsible recycling of the product," she said.

A report published by Environment Canada in 2002 indicated that an upward trend in e-waste existed after Canadians threw out an estimated 167,000 tonnes a year of electronic goods, and would rise to about 206,000 tonnes by 2010.

In 2004, Alberta was the first province to recycle e-waste, after the government foresaw the need to prevent the toxic substances used in electronics from affecting the environment. A year later, it introduced the levy system to help finance the program.

The recycling program in B.C. does have several limitations; for one, CD and DVD players and cellphones are not included. There is also worry about the potential effects of air pollution created by processing electronics at a smelter, which uses high temperatures to burn up fine metals.

Sarah Westervelt, a co-ordinator with the Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based group that has monitored the B.C. program since its announcement, is concerned the smelting process will unleash toxic substances into the air.

"In a sense, by heating this waste stream, you're creating new toxins that aren't there until you heat them," she said.

Mr. Harvey of Encorp says the company will be unveiling details on the three smelters that will be part of the e-waste program. The process has met federal, provincial, and municipal safety standards and passed an environmental audit conducted by an independent third-party, he says.