[AktiviX] You Send It, You Recycle It

Paul Mobbs mobbsey at gn.apc.org
Fri Apr 23 08:23:00 UTC 2004


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Sounds like a good idea...

P.




http://go.hotwired.com/news/politics/0,1283,63151,00.html/wn_ascii

You Send It, You Recycle It 

By Katie Dean
WIRED: 02:00 AM Apr. 22, 2004 PT


This story was corrected 4/22 to show that in addition to including a 
returnable envelope, CD makers and distributors can use other methods to 
provide a way for customers to return their CDs free of charge.

The California Assembly will debate a bill in coming weeks that would force 
companies to provide a return envelope for each unsolicited CD they send out, 
possibly crimping the marketing plans of companies like America Online.

Berkeley Assemblywoman Loni Hancock introduced the so-called Return to Sender 
bill this week. It would mandate that a postage-paid envelope be included 
with unsolicited CDs in mass mailings of 200 or more discs. Disposable DVDs 
such as Disney's 48-hour EZ-D must also include a return envelope -- or other 
means of returning it for free -- for customers' use.

The bill passed the California Assembly's Committee on Natural Resources 
Monday. The bill will be heard in the state's arts committee next week and 
then, if the committee clears it, will head to the Assembly floor in May.

"It's just such conspicuous waste to have this brand-new product made with 
this expensive and irreplaceable material end up in landfills, especially 
when the people who put them there didn't ask to receive the product in the 
first place," Hancock said.

Companies "send a product to people that they do not want, they did not ask 
for and will not use," she said. "(They) should take responsibility for 
taking back the product if it isn't used."

Hancock said that such CDs and DVDs end up "in the trash with the coffee 
grounds" instead of facilities where such high-grade plastics could be 
recycled into automobile dashboards and parts for electronic devices, for 
example.

Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, which helped 
put together the legislation, said these unsolicited CDs amount to added 
costs for consumers and local governments that have to pay for their 
disposal. He estimated that 300 million AOL CDs are sent out each year, 
creating tons of waste.

"I'm not aware of a single curbside recycling program in the state that 
accepts the CDs or the packaging for recycling," he said. "You're stuck 
putting this in your trash."

The bill is anti-consumer, anti-business and discriminatory against the 
software industry and online medium, said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. 
AOL's promotional CDs helped fuel the Internet economy by getting people 
online in the first place, and have helped to close the digital divide by 
giving free Net access to disadvantaged and minority audiences, he said.

"We continue to send out millions and millions of CD-ROMs every year because 
there is a great hunger for them among current members as well as prospective 
members," Graham said. "One person's definition of 'unsolicited' is another 
person's definition of, 'Gee, I might try that.'"

The company gets "thousands" of calls a day from people requesting the free 
CD-ROM, he said. And the company always recycles the CDs that are sent back 
to it, anyway. Graham said the bill could also have an impact on the music 
and movie industries that mail promotional material on CDs and DVDs.

"Send this crap to people as much as you like, just take it back if they don't 
want it," he said. 




==========

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-rc1-SuSE (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAiNJktEaNwM05jx0RAjhAAKDCgvPamMVoaMTV6d0kbW0W5OFERgCgtJNc
GuO1pTIJZeDPj3t615hRhrc=
=HbNx
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----





More information about the AktiviX-discuss mailing list