§ 1-40

(Section scheduled to be repealed on December 31, 2031) Sec. 1-40. Recycler responsibilities. (a) By January 1, 2019, and by January 1 of each year thereafter for that program year, beginning with program year 2019, each recycler must register with the Agency by (i) submitting to the Agency a $3,000 registration fee and (ii) completing and submitting to the Agency the registration form prescribed by the Agency. The registration form prescribed by the Agency shall include, without limitation, the address of each location where the recycler manages CEDs from covered entities collected through a manufacturer e-waste program and the certification required under subsection (d) of this Section. All registration fees collected by the Agency pursuant to this Section shall be deposited into the Solid Waste Management Fund. (a-5) The Agency may deny a registration under this Section if the recycler or any employee or officer of the recycler has a history of: (1) repeated violations of federal, State, or local laws, regulations, standards, or ordinances related to the collection, recycling, or other management of CEDs; (2) conviction in this State or another state of any crime which is a felony under the laws of this State, or conviction of a felony in a federal court; or conviction in this State or another state or federal court of any of the following crimes: forgery, official misconduct, bribery, perjury, or knowingly submitting false information under any environmental law, regulation, or permit term or condition; or (3) gross carelessness or incompetence in handling, storing, processing, transporting, disposing, or otherwise managing CEDs. (b) The Agency shall post on the Agency's website a list of all registered recyclers. (c) Beginning in program year 2019, no person may act as a recycler of CEDs from covered entities for a manufacturer's e-waste program unless the recycler is registered with the Agency as required under this Section. (d) Beginning in program year 2019, recyclers must, as a part of their annual registration, certify compliance with all of the following requirements: (1) Recyclers must comply with federal, State, and local laws and regulations, including federal and State minimum wage laws, specifically relevant to the handling, processing, and recycling of CEDs from covered entities and must have proper authorization by all appropriate governing authorities to perform the handling, processing, and recycling. (2) Recyclers must implement the appropriate measures to safeguard occupational and environmental health and safety, through the following: (A) environmental health and safety training of personnel, including training with regard to material and equipment handling, worker exposure, controlling releases, and safety and emergency procedures; (B) an up-to-date, written plan for the identification and management of hazardous materials; and (C) an up-to-date, written plan for reporting and responding to exceptional pollutant releases, including emergencies such as accidents, spills, fires, and explosions. (3) Recyclers must maintain (i) commercial general liability insurance or the equivalent corporate guarantee for accidents and other emergencies with limits of not less than $1,000,000 per occurrence and $1,000,000 aggregate and (ii) pollution legal liability insurance with limits not less than $1,000,000 per occurrence for companies engaged solely in the dismantling activities and $5,000,000 per occurrence for companies engaged in recycling. (4) Recyclers must maintain on file documentation that demonstrates the completion of an environmental health and safety audit completed and certified by a competent internal and external auditor annually. A competent auditor is an individual who, through professional training or work experience, is appropriately qualified to evaluate the environmental health and safety conditions, practices, and procedures of the facility. Documentation of auditors' qualifications must be available for inspection by Agency officials and third-party auditors. (5) Recyclers must maintain on file proof of workers' compensation and employers' liability insurance. (6) Recyclers must provide adequate assurance, such as bonds or corporate guarantees, to cover environmental and other costs of the closure of the recycler's facility, including cleanup of stockpiled equipment and materials. (7) Recyclers must apply due diligence principles to the selection of facilities to which components and materials, such as plastics, metals, and circuit boards, from CEDs from covered entities are sent for reuse and recycling. (8) Recyclers must establish a documented environmental management system that is appropriate in level of detail and documentation to the scale and function of the facility, including documented regular self-audits or inspections of the recycler's environmental compliance at the facility. (9) Recyclers must use the appropriate equipment for the proper processing of incoming materials as well as controlling environmental releases to the environment. The dismantling operations and storage of CED components from covered entities that contain hazardous substances must be conducted indoors and over impervious floors. Storage areas must be adequate to hold all processed and unprocessed inventory. When heat is used to soften solder and when CED components from covered entities are shredded, operations must be designed to control indoor and outdoor hazardous air emissions. (10) Recyclers must establish a system for identifying and properly managing components, such as circuit boards, batteries, cathode-ray tubes, and mercury phosphor lamps, that are removed from CEDs from covered entities during disassembly. Recyclers must properly manage all hazardous and other components requiring special handling from CEDs from covered entities consistent with federal, State, and local laws and regulations. Recyclers must provide visible tracking, such as hazardous waste manifests or bills of lading, of hazardous components and materials from the facility to the destination facilities and documentation, such as contracts, stating how the destination facility processes the materials received. No recycler may send, either directly or through intermediaries, hazardous wastes to solid non-hazardous waste landfills or to non-hazardous waste incinerators for disposal or energy recovery. For the purpose of these guidelines, smelting of hazardous wastes to recover metals for reuse in conformance with all applicable laws and regulations is not considered disposal or energy recovery. (11) Recyclers must use a regularly implemented and documented monitoring and record-keeping program that tracks for CEDs from covered entities total inbound material weights and total subsequent outbound weights to each destination, injury and illness rates, and compliance with applicable permit parameters including monitoring of effluents and emissions. Recyclers must maintain contracts or other documents, such as sales receipts, suitable to demonstrate: (i) the reasonable expectation that there is a downstream market or uses for designated electronics, which may include recycling or reclamation processes such as smelting to recover metals for reuse; and (ii) that any residuals from recycling or reclamation processes, or both, are properly handled and managed to maximize reuse and recycling of materials to the extent practical. (12) Recyclers must employ industry-accepted procedures for the destruction or sanitization of data on hard drives and other data storage devices. Acceptable guidelines for the destruction or sanitization of data are contained in the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Guidelines for Media Sanitation or those guidelines certified by the National Association for Information Destruction. (13) No recycler may employ prison labor in any operation related to the collection, transportation, and recycling of CEDs. No recycler may employ any third party that uses or subcontracts for the use of prison labor. (e) Each recycler shall, during each calendar year, transport from each site that the recycler uses to manage CEDs from covered entities not less than 75% of the total weight of CEDs from covered entities present at the site during the preceding calendar year. Each recycler shall maintain on-site records that demonstrate compliance with this requirement and shall make those records available to the Agency for inspection and copying. (f) Nothing in this Act shall prevent a person from acting as a recycler independently of a manufacturer e-waste program.

Legislative History

(Source: P.A. 104-274, eff. 1-1-26 .)