PEARL
Promoting E-waste Avoidance and Reduction Legislation

TAE’s newest initiative is to petition the U.S. Congress for new laws that  mandate e-waste recycling at the federal level and promote less e-waste  generation in electronic products. By writing petition letters and emails to members of U.S. Congress, TAE is taking the fight for e-waste management to the next level. Like a pearl, our Mother Earth is a beautiful and precious  globe. Let’s work together to save natural resources, and, more importantly,  protect Mother Earth from the harms of e-waste pollution.

Why PEARL?

The average American has access to over 25 connected devices, according to a 2020 survey. This increased dependence on technology and smart devices generates an enormous amount of electronic waste. According to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, the US population generates 6.9 million tons of e-waste annually. Only 17.4% of it is currently recycled and it is the fastest-growing waste stream globally. This leads to the loss of precious metal recycling opportunities and the dispersion of toxic elements creating serious global economic, health, and environmental problems. Individuals rather than consumer electronics companies bear the burden of properly recycling e-waste even though the availability of local recycling channels is limited.

Currently, only 25 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have electronics recycling laws. For example, California e-waste laws ban the following products from the Disposal/landfill/Waste Stream: Cell Phones, CRT Monitors, CRT TVs, Desktops, Flat Panel/LCD Monitors, Flat Panel/LCD TV, Laptops, Printers, Tablets, Telephones, VCRs. This means that half of our country does not have any recycling laws. In those states, e-waste commonly ends up in landfills leading to environmental pollution and long-term health hazards. This is simply unacceptable. This is why we need Federal electronics recycling laws to ensure better e-waste management. 

Currently, only Massachusetts, Colorado, New York, Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, and California passed Right to Repair laws. In California, the Right to Repair Act (SB 244) took effect on July 1, 2024. It requires manufacturers to facilitate the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of electronic or appliance products by offering documentation, parts, and tools to any owner, service and repair facilities, and service dealers on fair and reasonable terms. Federal right to repair laws for electronic and appliance products are needed to make all states generate less e-waste by supporting repair.

E-waste recycling works by preventing e-waste from ending up in the wrong places such as landfills. Recycling is important towards protecting our environment, but a better and more effective method of managing e-waste would be to tackle the problem at its source by enacting laws that stop or reduce the generation of e-waste byproducts in electronic equipment. Therefore our PEARL campaign is to petition U.S. Congress for not only federal e-waste recycling laws but also federal laws that mandate certain electronic product design standards and electronic or appliance companies' business practices that eliminates or reduces e-waste generation.

Goals of TAE PERAL Campaign

  • Pass federal electronics recycling laws to cover every state: Based on the California e-waste law, ban e-waste from the Disposal/Landfill/Waste Stream.

  • Pass federal right to repair laws for electronic and appliance products to cover every state: Based on California’s the Right to Repair Act, prevent repairable electronic and appliance products from becoming e-waste prematurely.
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  • Require cell phones to be made with user replaceable batteries: In the past, all cell phones (e.g. flip phones) had batteries that were easily user replaceable. This is no longer true, and with the substantially high price of getting a cell phone serviced, plus the inconvenience of finding a service provider, many people opt to buy new phones. Therefore, an old cell phone becomes electronic waste even though it may be in perfect working condition otherwise, and the user would be happy to keep using it if a new battery could be installed more easily.
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  • Follow the EU example of standardizing charging ports: The EU recently passed legislation requiring all electronics sold there to have USB-C charging ports. By having charger compatibility, EU users no longer have to buy different chargers and cables when they change their models or brands. The lack of such legislation in the US forces US consumers to buy different or new accessories due to unstandardized charging/headphone jacks and cables, which promotes wasteful electronic usage that often creates e-waste.
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  • Require standardization of laptop batteries and chargers: Currently most brands and models of laptop computers have their own version of battery and/or charger. They are not interchangeable in most cases. Countless households and businesses end up with useless batteries and chargers after they switch or upgrade their laptops. This type of e-waste can be greatly reduced if laptop batteries and chargers are standardized to just a few versions in size and power rating, like the common small batteries in every household: limited to AA, AAA, C, D, and 9V. Interchangeable batteries and chargers can be shared by different laptops and users, and can continue to be used when someone buys or switches to a new laptop, thus cutting down the number of leftover batteries and chargers that need to be recycled or thrown into the landfill. 

  • Require new versions of operating systems, such as Windows, iOS, Android, to be backwards compatible with older devices/models, and require older operating systems to be maintained: Many operating system updates effectively abandon older devices/models, and old apps or programs often no longer work with new operating systems. These changes can make older devices/models perform worse (e.g. much slower) or make new operating systems incompatible with older devices/models altogether, a tactic that forces users to buy new electronics and causes huge amounts of electronic waste to be created. Practical measures may be incorporated in this mandate such as specific limits in the number of versions or the number of year’s operating systems or devices should be compatible and or maintained.
The Story behind Naming PEARL Campaign

​​By launching the One Million Batteries and the WEEEcycle campaigns, TAE has been very successful in recycling e-waste and making a huge impact on countless schools and communities. Although very pleased with the results of these campaigns, the TAE leadership team was still actively seeking new ideas in combating e-waste. When Jacqueline Zhou, VP of Operations & Technology, came up with the idea of petitioning the Congress for federal e-waste management laws, the TAE leadership team quickly formed an action plan to implement it. But what do we call this new campaign? Using the acronym PCFEL - Petition Congress For E-waste Laws? It just did not sound good. Being an art buff, Jacqueline visited art museums all over the world. One of her favorite oil paintings was Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer in Mauritshuis. Standing in front of the masterpiece, the image and word of pearl suddenly clicked: Let’s name our campaign PEARL - Promoting E-waste Avoidance and Reduction Legislation, a perfect acronym that sounded very nice and symbolized the vision of keeping our globe clean and beautiful, like a pearl!
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