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By Lisa Friedman, The Oakland Tribune

WASHINGTON, 18 July 2002 -- Yesterday's computer is tomorrow's environmental nightmare said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, who today plans to introduce legislation to help recycle the world's growing mound of toxic cybertrash.

"It's real bad," said Thompson. "By 2007 we'll have 5 million pounds of electronic waste, and we're going to have to do something with it."

Americans are expected to trash about 10 million old computers this year. Most of them will end up strewn along rivers and fields in Asia where rural villagers smash up machines and burn circuit boards -- releasing toxins like lead and mercury -- as they scavenge for precious metals inside.

In California alone, 10,000 computer and television monitors become obsolete every day. State officials estimate that cobwebs are growing on 6 million more stored in family basements and garages.

Recycling computer waste has become a major issue in the Golden State. California and Massachusetts both have banned cathode-ray tube monitors from landfills and incinerators.

The result, said Marc Murray of Californians Against Waste, is that cities and counties are left figuring out how to pay for about $150 million worth of high-tech recycling each year.

"It's a huge economic problem for California," Murray said. "It put a huge new hazardous waste responsibility on the backs of local government and local government doesn't have the resources."

Recycling a computer costs between $15 and $30 per terminal.

Thompson's bill would impose a fee of up to $10 on the purchase of every computer. The Environmental Protection Agency then would use that money to distribute grants to organizations that dispose of or recycle computers.

Thompson said it isn't reasonable to expect the federal government to pay for recycling and likened the fee to the one for disposing of automobile tires.

"Taxpayers can't foot the bill for disposal of everything that's out there," he said. "What we want to do is just provide (local governments) with some help."

The bill is one of the first in the House that addresses the problems of computer waste -- in part because the electronics industry has long resisted steps like including the cost of recycling in a computer's purchasing price.

A spokesman with the Information Technology Association with America, the high-tech industry's main lobbying group, did not return several calls Wednesday seeking comment on Thompson's bill.

Thompson said manufacturers "are a little concerned about how this all shakes out. There's no question about that." But, he and others said Wednesday that recent decisions by many states to mandate responsible recycling has prompted industry leaders to explore the idea of building a fee into the cost of a computer.

Toxic cleanup advocates said most of America's e-waste lands in the hands of parts brokers. Because the U.S. does not have an organized recycling system, however, those resellers are hard to track.