In an article published July 28th 2013 by Tom Jackson a Tribune Staff writer, Tom explains his own personal experience in dealing with the recycling of his computer monitor via Pasco County and their contractor Quicksilver Recycling Services. My introduction to Pasco County's e-waste recycling program began quite out of the blue, the Dell computer monitor at my Wesley Chapel office refused to work one day. My IT guys suggested that I recycle it and that’s how I wound up driving last week to Pasco's electronics recycling outpost located on the northwest corner of the county's vast solid waste complex. There you will find Mickey McGee, from Plant City via Zephyrhills, who ushers obsolete electronics from resident’s vehicles and prepares them for transport to Quicksilver’s Tampa facility for processing. McGee’s on-site supervisor is Charley Ryburn, who oversees Pasco's hazardous waste disposal, a responsibility that falls under the jurisdiction of the utilities department. This day both are in the company of Jim Lawler, vice president of Tampa-based Quicksilver Recycling Services, which handles the vast bulk of gadgetry flowing through Pasco's e-waste program. In 2011-2012, this amounted to nearly 700 tons of TVs, computers (both laptops and desktops), cellphones, gaming consoles, monitors and who knows what else. Earlier, someone had dropped off avionic instruments from some unknown airplane. Most of it is inoperable, but some of it has simply been deposed by something newer. "Our biggest month," Ryburn says, "is January. People bring in the old TV and the box the new one came in." Mostly, however, stuff arrives that has been relegated, perhaps for years, to a closet or a garage corner, succumbing only to redecorating or relocation. Folks in the solid waste business call this clinging "attic mentality," the practice of hanging on to utterly obsolete or otherwise useless things for reasons hard to explain. Ryburn likes the program because it keeps heavy metals from going up the incinerator chimney or leaching into the ground water. Lawler likes the program because recovering those same materials, though labor intensive, is still cheaper than mining and it prevents pollution. McGee likes it because you never know what you're going to see next. I like it because they promised to be gentle with my sleepy old Dell monitor.

Gina McCarthy has been confirmed by a 59-40 Senate vote to serve as the next head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency according to Resource Recycling July 19th 2013. The confirmation followed more than four months of grueling debate between Democrats and Republicans over issues of transparency and data collection at EPA. A Boston native, McCarthy is known for her common-sense, science-driven approach and a rare ability to work with environmental groups and industry leaders. She served under both Democratic and Republican leadership and is said to be a friend of the electronics recycling industry. One of McCarthy's most important achievements came in 2007, when she led a successful legislative push to pass an e-scrap producer responsibility law in Connecticut that called on manufacturers to handle the collection and safe management of their end-of-life products. My own commentary on this appointment is that presently there is no federal legislation regarding electronics recycling, rather it is a patchwork of individual state legislation, each uniquely different, that exists amongst only twenty-six states, Florida not being one of them. Perhaps under McCarthy’s leadership she will bring electronics recycling experience that may lead to federal legislation so that we all (states) are on the same page when it comes to dealing with responsible electronics recycling