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SAN FRANCISCO, California, 11 March 2002-- ANCHORS: BOB EDWARDS REPORTERS: JOHN McCHESNEY BODY: BOB EDWARDS, host: The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that each year more than three million tons of computer equipment wind up in landfills across the country; an even greater amount gets shipped overseas, where it's melted down or salvaged with little consideration for environmental consequences. NPR's John McChesney reports. JOHN McCHESNEY reporting: It's estimated that as many as 315 million computers will become obsolete by 2004. PC monitors are especially toxic, with several pounds of lead used to shield us from radiation, and they also contain mercury and cadmium. PC cases are toxic if they're burned. Some PC manufacturers, like Hewlett-Packard, have seen the problem coming and have begun to offer recycling to customers over the Web. HP's Renee St. Denis says you fill out a form with information about what country you live in and other essentials.

Ms. RENEE ST. DENIS (Hewlett-Packard): What you have to return and where you live. We take credit card information, then we come to your house and pick it up. McCHESNEY: And how much does it cost? Ms. ST. DENIS: It varies depending on what you want to send back, and the charges range between 9 and $30. McCHESNEY: IBM also has a recycling program of its own, and some other PC makers like Dell and Gateway have different kinds of incentives for turning in old computers. But environmentalists argue that these programs are not enough. Ted Smith is head of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. He says that computermakers should take responsibility for recycling when they sell a new machine.

Mr. TED SMITH (Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition): So that they will incorporate into the price of the product the costs of life cycle treatment so that the product price will be enough so that we'll get enough money into the system to be able to recycle it at the end. McCHESNEY: This approach is known as product stewardship and is already in place in Japan and Europe. HP's Renee St. Denis says this approach may not work here. Ms. ST. DENIS: I understand the point they're trying to make, but if we can't rely on the consumer to do the right thing, it doesn't matter if we charge them up front or not. There still isn't much of an incentive for them to necessarily return it. So what we want to do is make sure that whatever system we put in place creates the right incentive for people to participate. McCHESNEY: Skeptics doubt that the computer companies, facing ever-thinner profit margins, will ever agree to an up-front fee unless they're forced into it by new laws. In any case, the Toxic Coalition's Ted Smith says consumers could be given an incentive to recycle. Mr. SMITH: If a part of the front-end cost were redeemable to the consumer the way we do it with, oh, tires or batteries or things like that, I think that consumers will certainly be a big part of the solution. I think they want to be, there's just not very many solutions around right now, and public education can really go a long way in that regard.

McCHESNEY: A new law would cover new machines, but Dan Bayha of Back Thru The Future Microcomputers, a recycling company in New Jersey, says that's only part of the problem. Mr. DAN BAYHA (Back Thru The Future Microcomputers): Guess what? All that does is help us going forward. What in the world do we do with the legacy equipment that's out there? I mean, we're talking hundreds of millions of machines with no home. McCHESNEY: And what about companies that have hundreds, even thousands of PCs to get rid of? Where do they turn? Well, there are dozens of electronics recycling companies out there that take care of corporate systems.

Some are scrupulous and some are not. Some actually do their own recycling here in the United States, and others are merely middle men who ship the waste over to places like China and Vietnam. Redemtech, an Ohio-based company that handles big accounts like Wells Fargo bank, does its own recycling, but company president Bob Houghton says it's expensive to melt down a computer to its component metals.

Estimates are that it costs 30 cents a pound to strip down PCs, but if you ship them abroad, you make a profit of about 7 cents a pound. Mr. BOB HOUGHTON (Redemtech): If you don't have scale and if you're not, you know, pretty efficient in the first place, you can't economically do the right thing. McCHESNEY: Companies like Houghton's Redemtech have major corporate customers that have a strong public relations incentive to do the right thing, but smaller companies with old PCs and small budgets may have to take the low road and use a middle man who is exporting the waste. Again, the Toxic Coalition's Ted Smith. Mr. SMITH: We estimate that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of all e-waste generated in the US is now being shipped to China and other parts of Asia. McCHESNEY: And there's nothing illegal about that. It's not classified as hazardous waste, and even if it were, the United States is not party to the international treaty governing that kind of material, so it would still be legal. Ted Smith says he expects states and municipalities to take action on e- waste before the federal government does anything. Already, states like California, Massachusetts and Minnesota have classified e-waste as hazardous and have programs to deal with it.

John McChesney, NPR News, San Francisco.