NEPSI still looking for a solution.

The February meeting of industry, government and environmental stakeholders involved in the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) in Portland, Ore., endorsed a draft resolution stating the process for future action.

Negotiations among the 45 participants in NEPSI have been hampered by the inability to settle on a financing system that all the industry stakeholders could agree on. The proposed draft system is a hybrid model that consists of an advanced recovery fee on products at the point of sale, with an eventual transition to a funding phase that incorporates partial cost internalization. The model is to cover TVs and TV monitors, both CRTs and flat screens, standalone computer CRTs and flat panel monitors greater than 9 inches, laptops, CPUs, small peripherals (mice, keyboards, speakers) and consumer desktop devices (printers).

Some industry stakeholders prefer that an alternative system to the advance recovery fee will be available, giving their companies an opportunity to meet the same system goals in their own ways without a point-of-sale fee on their products.

"The states still seek a national solution over state-by-state programs, and we stand ready to continue negotiations should industry coalesce on a viable national financing system," Scott Cassel, director of the Product Stewardship Institute, Lowell, Mass., says.

Catherine Wilt, NEPSI coordinator and policy director for the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies at the University of Tennessee, says the NEPSI dialogue has fostered greater understanding of the problems related to electronics disposal and a deeper appreciation of how these problems impact all stakeholders. "While we have not reached an agreement yet, we are extremely close," she says.