St. Paul Democratic Representative Athena Hollins learned about Minnesota’s electronic waste problem two years ago, and it quickly became a passion project.
The state’s electronic waste collection law, passed in 2007, largely addresses televisions, computers, and fax machines. But a lot has changed since then, she said. Consumer electronics rapidly expanded, and today only an estimated 20% of electronic waste in the state is recycled.
The law is “terribly outdated,” Hollins told members of a House environmental committee Wednesday as she introduced her bill, which aims to collect 100% of electronic waste in Minnesota.
Most old electronic devices lie discarded in basements or what experts call “drawers of shame,” where their valuable metals linger unused, or are tossed into the general waste stream.
Only about 20% of Minnesota’s electronic waste—much of it hidden in “drawers of shame”—is recycled today.
Electronics are dangerous additions to landfills or recycling facilities. Their metals can leak and contaminate groundwater, and lithium ion batteries routinely spark fires at sorting stations.
“This is universally recognized as an issue that has significantly increased in the past 20 years,” Hollins said.
Hollins’ bill would expand the definition of electronic waste to include all electronically powered products. It would make electronics recycling free for all state residents and businesses at the end of a device’s life by adding a 3.2% fee for most electronic goods sold in the state at the point of sale. Cell phones would have a 90-cent fee instead of the 3.2 percent figure.
That fee would provide a net savings for consumers, according to Maria Jensen of Recycling Electronics for Climate Action. Most Minnesotans now pay about $25 to recycle a microwave oven though their county, for example, but with the proposed law, they would pay about $6 extra at the point of sale, and eventual disposal would be free.
The money would go into a fund managed by the state. Waste collectors would be reimbursed from that fund for picking up and shipping electronic waste to recyclers once they submitted quarterly invoices to the state.
Mining value
Recycling the state’s electronic waste could generate millions of dollars in economic activity, provide good-paying jobs, and decrease the need for conventional mining operations, according to a study published last year. The metals those devices contain, such as copper, iron, and nickel, are needed to build out the clean energy infrastructure necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.
“A shortage of critical metals puts our energy transition at risk—metals which could be extracted from our electronic waste,” Jensen said.
Fully recycling the state’s electronic waste could recover 78 million pounds of valuable elements such as palladium, platinum, and gold worth an estimated $3.2 billion each year, according to the 2023 study authored by Jensen, Macalester College professor Roopali Phadke, and the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability. It could provide enough silver to produce more than 400,000 solar panels and enough copper to produce 155,000 electric vehicle batteries.
Senator Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, said the bill is needed for mineral gathering. He represents a mineral-rich area of northern Minnesota, and thinks e-waste can be a good addition to domestic mining to get materials needed for clean energy infrastructure.
“I want an all-of-the-above approach,” Hauschild said.
Decreasing pollution, increasing safety
The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Robert Kupec, DFL-Moorhead, and has bipartisan support via co-author Senator Jim Abeler, R-Anoka.
Most Minnesotans now must pay to recycle electronic waste and travel to specific facilities, typically county-run, to do so. That leads to many residents simply deciding not to properly dispose of their electronic waste.
The cost of recycling electronics currently falls on counties and residents, according to Brian Martinson, who testified to legislators on behalf of the Association of Minnesota Counties and the Solid Waste Administrators Association of Minnesota, both of which support the bill.
Recycling more electronic waste would bring important safety and environmental benefits, advocates say.
Eureka Recycling, a large metro-area nonprofit recycler, experiences 17 fires a year in trucks and sorting facilities due to batteries and electronics put into curbside recycling bins, according to policy director Lucy Mullany. Workers have suffered third-degree burns in accidents, and the frequency of fires is making insurance hard to obtain, Mullany said.
“It’s time the state took action to address the improper disposal of electronics by passing this bill,” Mullany said.
“It’s time the state took action to address the improper disposal of electronics by passing this bill.”
Lucy Mullany of Eureka Recycling
Electronics in landfills contribute to groundwater contamination, and in particular are a major source of lead pollution, according to Avonna Starck of Clean Water Action. About 70 percent of landfill lead pollution comes from discarded electronics, Starck said.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency supports the bill, assistant commissioner Kirk Koudelka told lawmakers.
