Ron Wyden: “the pace of technological innovation offers American consumers an eye-catching array of electronic gadgets. But for…”

“the pace of technological innovation offers American consumers an eye-catching array of electronic gadgets. But for every new lap top or HDTV that goes home from the store with a consumer, an old computer or TV gets moved to the garage or shoved into the back of a closet. What to do with the growing amount of trash from the digital economy is a question that Senator Talent and I believe must be addressed before our landfills are full and foreign countries close their ports to ships loaded down with old US computers. Today we are introducing bipartisan legislation to jumpstart a nationwide electronic waste recycling initiative. When I was a member of the Commerce Committee, I helped write the ground rules for the digital economy. My goal was to help create a climate that would spur the development of technology so it would become accessible and affordable to all Americans. This approach seems to be working. One measure of the success of the digital economy is the sheer number of computers and electronic gadgets that Americans own. Americans now spend more than $130 billion a year on electronics, from computers to HDTVs. The boom in consumer spending on electronics and the growth in the digital economy are not without a downside. In one year alone, some 60 million computers and 20 million television sets become obsolete and more than 500 million computers will be discarded in the decade ending in 2007.”