Now you folks probably don’t care about poor people, but I don’t have much money and I’m glad I paid only 20 bucks for a cheap Tracfone. I use the phone primarily what it was designed for–making phone calls.

I will use this phone for as long as I can.

For all you rich people worried about waste, stop buying more phones. Just because you have a spending problem doesn’t mean that poor people should suffer with higher prices.

The smartest environmental solutions are ones that are low cost and affordable, and integrate easily into people’s everyday lives.

The author of this blog post would seek to enforce compliance by imposing an economic hardship to induce a behavior modification.

Not only would it be ineffective, the burden would be shifted unfairly on lower income families for whom the difference in price makes a big difference in the household budget.

1. First of all, many areas of the country have free recycling of old phones.

2. Many areas already have laws on the books (that are enforced) prohibiting people from simply throwing out any electronics along with the rest of their normal municipal trash. Have an old computer? You can’t throw it out, you have to take it to a recycling center.

But your right, perhaps such incentives are not enough because they do not encompass the entire country.

Here is what I propose. What we apply to cans and bottles, apply to cell phones.

Create a deposit/redemption program. You buy a phone, it has a small nominal deposit fee. When you return your phone for the next new hot phone, you get your deposit applied to the next phone or cash if you are not renewing.

Will you get 100% compliance? No. But it will be better then either jacking up the price of the phone or simply trying to guilt people into reducing ewaste. And its better then a straight tax because getting money back is allways a good motivator for behavior.