Library

Snohomish County has created many documents related to electronics management and product stewardship. Most of these documents are posted at the Northwest Product Stewardship Council website.

Resources for other governments

Snohomish County has benefited in the design of its local electronics recycling strategy and program through its work with other governments, non-profit organizations and local and national retailers, manufacturers and recyclers and its involvement in the Western Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative and the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative. The Take It Back Network concept and some of our program and promotional materials may be useful to other local governments and are posted on this website. They are freely available for use by other local governments. Simply contact us by phone or e-mail if you plan to use or adapt these materials. Contact Sego Jackson at 425-388-6490.

Snohomish County Program Documents

Snohomish County has created a number of documents that may be of use to others developing programs. The Take it Back Network establishes collection and processing partners in the private sector, mostly small retail stores. Numerous materials have been created to assist these businesses, including a Packaging and Transport manual. Snohomish County also collects e-waste at three public transfer stations, charging end of life fees. Handling e-waste is not similar to handling garbage and typical recyclables. An Operations Manual was created for training of and use by County operations staff who now handle e-waste.

Seattle Assessment

The Seattle Assessment is a study led by Reggie Caudill of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in cooperation with Snohomish County, Rifer Environmental, and Sharp Electronics in conjunction with the Infrastructure Committee of NEPSI. The purpose of the study is to look at various electronic product collection strategies in a geographic area and determine the range of costs for providing that collection service. This is the type of analysis that may be necessary in the future to help determine the amount of a “base service collection incentive payment” that would be paid to those providing collection service in a new “front-end financed” electronics recycling system. Snohomish County is the first area to be studied. After lessons are drawn and refinements are made from the Snohomish County scenarios, the intention is to do another round of analysis in King and Pierce Counties. These concepts and this modeling effort are preliminary and should not be considered anything but exploratory.