Disappointed with delays in Sacramento (the capital of California), Bay Area officials said Thursday they planned to take matters into their own hands to regulate the region’s growing piles of electronic waste.
A San Jose council woman and a San Francisco supervisor said they would propose new local plans aimed at controlling electronic waste if the California law-making body fails to act on two bills delayed in the Assembly. They are among a growing number of California cities and countries that have expressed the same intention
Environmentalists and local governments are increasingly concerned about the danger caused by old electronic devices and the cost of safely recycling those products. An estimated 6 million televisions and computers are stocked in California homes, and an additional 6,000 to 7,000 computers become outdated every day. The machines contain high levels of lead (铅) and other dangerous substances, and are already banned from California landfills.
A bill by Senator (参议员) Byron Sher would require consumers to pay a recycling fee of up to $30 on every new machine containing a cathode ray tube. Used in almost all video monitors and televisions, those devices contain four to eight pounds of lead each. The fees would go toward setting up recycling programs, providing grants to non-profit agencies that reuse the tubes and rewarding manufacturers that encourage recycling.
A separate bill by Los Angeles-area Senator Gloria Romero would require high-tech manufacturers to develop programs to recycle so-called e-waste. If passed, the measures would put California at the forefront of national efforts to manage the refuse of the electronic age.
But high-tech groups, including the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and the American Electronics Association, oppose the measures, arguing that fees of up to $30 will drive consumers to online, out-of-state shops.
“What really needs to occur is consumer education. Most consumers are unaware they’re not supposed to throw computers in the dust bin,” said Roxanne Gould, vice president of government relations for the electronics association.
Computer recycling should be a local effort and part of residential waste collection programs, she added. Recycling electronic waste is a dangerous and specialized matter, and environmentalists maintain the state must support recycling efforts and ensure that the job isn’t contracted to junk dealers who send the poisonous parts overseas.
“The graveyard of the high-tech revolution is ending up in rural China,” said Ted Smith, director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. His group is pushing for some refinement to Sher’s bill that would prevent the export of e-waste.
63. How would Bay Area officials deal with the problem of e-waste? ____________.
A. To get enough support to pass the delayed bills.
B. To persuade the lawmakers of the California Assembly.
C. To make relevant local regulations by themselves.
D. To put pressure on manufacturers of electronic devices.
64. What do the two bills delayed in the California Assembly both concern? _________.
A. The reprocessing of the huge amounts of electronic waste in the state.
B. The regulations on dumping dangerous substances into landfills.
C. The funding of local initiatives to reuse waste electronic devices.
D. The sales of the second-hand electronic devices to foreign countries.
65. High-tech groups believe that if an extra fee is charged on every TV or computer purchased in California, consumers will ______________.
A. hesitate to upgrade their computers B. abandon online shopping
C. strongly protest against such a charge D. buy them from other states
66. We learn from the passage that much of California’s electronic waste has been ________.
A. dumped into local landfills B. exported to foreign countries
C. collected by non-profit agencies D. recycled by computer manufacturers