It's often a risk for government to take on a problem that could be better left to the private sector. California's troubled electronic waste program is one more example.
The 5-year-old state effort has paid more than $320 million to collect and recycle computer monitors, televisions and other waste from the digital age. But by dangling all that money, the program has become a magnet for fraud.
Unscrupulous operators have bought e-waste on the cheap in Arizona and other nearby states, smuggled it into California and made millions by passing it off as coming from our homes and businesses.
Shockingly, no one in state government anticipated this problem when the program was established, and then did nothing when the fraud was finally discovered. In fact, a Sacramento Bee investigation found that state officials have known about the increasing fraud for years.
So how long will California consumers get stiffed? They fund the program through a fee ranging from $8 to $25 tacked onto the price of new monitors and televisions. They're entitled to know that it's their obsolete equipment -- about 3.3 million monitors and TVs a year -- that is being recycled.
It's telling that none of the 22 states that followed California with e-waste laws created a government-run program. Instead, they required private industry to deal with the waste and pay for recycling, as then-Gov. Davis wanted to do in 2002. Opposition from the tech industry, however, killed that approach.
Now that California is deeply invested in the program, it must quickly move to fix it, by identifying fraud and punishing those responsible.
While the state has rejected about $23 million in fraudulent claims, it wrongly paid as much as $30 million in other ineligible claims, according to The Sacramento Bee.
California leads the nation in e-waste recycling, and keeping lead-laden glass out of landfills is worthwhile. But so far, the main story of the state's program is one of unintended consequences.
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