Posted by Peter, a resident of the Castro City neighborhood, on Nov 10, 2011 at 2:48 pm

I think that it is pretty sad that local governments are stuck with the bill while companies make huge profits selling the American public these items. It would seem more responsible to require these companies to take back their products when they are no longer functioning and make them pay for properly disposing of the waste. I bet you if that happened many of these products would be designed to contain a lot less hazardous materials in them.

Posted by Ned, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Nov 10, 2011 at 2:58 pm

And they'd be a lot more expensive and no one would buy them.

Posted by Peter, a resident of the Castro City neighborhood, on Nov 10, 2011 at 5:27 pm

Perhaps initially but as with all things the price will come down and your local government will not have to pay the expense. Of course they will find something else to spend it on but that is another story.

Posted by Martin Omander, a resident of the Rex Manor neighborhood, on Nov 14, 2011 at 4:01 pm

I'm with Peter on this one. After all, if a product causes $5 worth of environmental damage when discarded, and costs $5 to recycle, *someone* is going to pay. Should it be the user of the product, or should it be the taxpayers? I propose the former.