R2v3 Certified Facilities in Georgia

There is no Georgia electronic waste recycling act. Searching the full text of Title 10 and Title 12 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated for electronic waste, e-waste and cathode ray returns nothing, and EPD's own index of environmental rules lists 391-3-4 for solid waste and 391-3-11 for hazardous waste with no rule addressing electronics, computers or CRTs at all. EPD's recycling page treats electronics as a voluntary material-specific topic and points at third-party national programmes rather than at any Georgia requirement.

Sources: Georgia EPD, recycling and waste reduction resources · Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-4, solid waste management · Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-11, hazardous waste management

The act vendors keep citing was real, and it was repealed

Several recycling vendors assert that Georgia has a Georgia Computer Equipment Disposal and Recycling Act. It is worth being precise about what is wrong with that, because the usual correction — that no such act exists — is itself not quite right.

O.C.G.A. 12-8-33.1 did exist. Its catchline read Improper disposal of computer equipment; Computer Equipment Disposal and Recycling Council created; compensation; powers and duties, and it was enacted by Ga. L. 2002, p. 1086, Section 1. It was repealed by Ga. L. 2007, p. 47, Section 12/SB 103, effective 11 May 2007, and the code has carried it as repealed ever since. So a vendor citing it is citing a provision that was removed from Georgia law nineteen years ago, not one that was invented. Either way it imposes nothing on anybody today, and a compliance obligation should not be accepted on its authority.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 12-8-33.1, repealed

And no landfill ban reaches electronics

Georgia's disposal restrictions are material-specific, and computers, servers, storage, monitors and televisions appear in none of them. Lead acid vehicle batteries are the cleanest: under O.C.G.A. 12-8-28(a), after January 1, 1991, no person may place a used lead acid vehicle battery in mixed municipal solid waste or discard or otherwise dispose of a lead acid vehicle battery except by delivery to one of four named destinations.

The other restrictions are more conditional than they are usually described. Scrap tires are not simply banned: 12-8-40.1(b) provides that after December 31, 1994, no person may dispose of scrap tires in a solid waste landfill unless the scrap tires are shredded, chopped, or chipped in accordance with standards established by the board, and then one of three further conditions is met. Yard trimmings under 12-8-40.2(a) may not be placed in or mixed with municipal solid waste except at construction or demolition landfills, inert waste landfills, or lined municipal solid waste landfills having operating landfill gas collection systems directed to beneficial uses — three exceptions, and the current text carries no commencement date. And there is a fourth restriction usually left off the list: 12-8-40.3 makes it unlawful to dispose of any roofing shingles which contain asphalt except in construction and demolition or municipal solid waste landfills.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 12-8-28, lead acid vehicle batteries · O.C.G.A. 12-8-40.1, tire disposal restrictions · O.C.G.A. 12-8-40.2, yard trimmings disposal restrictions · O.C.G.A. 12-8-40.3, disposal of shingles containing asphalt

The only screen that touches your equipment is indirect

Every Georgia landfill runs a load-screening programme. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 391-3-4-.07(3)(c)(1) requires owners or operators of all landfills to implement a program at the facility for detecting and preventing the disposal of regulated quantities of hazardous wastes, PCB wastes and other prohibited wastes, and sets the minimum contents: random inspections of incoming loads unless the owner or operator takes other steps to ensure that incoming loads do not contain prohibited wastes, records of any inspections, training of facility personnel to recognize prohibited wastes, and notification of the Director if a prohibited waste is discovered at the facility.

So a load can be rejected, recorded and reported to the state even though no electronics ban exists. The trigger is the hazardous waste characteristic, not the device category — and the procedures must be made a part of the operating record, which means the rejection is written down somewhere your name is on.

Sources: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-4, solid waste management

What actually falls on you

Nothing under an e-waste law, because there is none. Obligations arise only where the retired equipment is hazardous waste, and those fall on the generating business. Rule 391-3-11-.01(2) adopts the federal system wholesale, incorporating 40 C.F.R. Parts 124, 260-266, 268, 270, 273 and 279 as amended through October 1, 2021, unless otherwise stated. What that leaves on a business is the familiar set: the hazardous waste determination on retired equipment, an EPA identification number and generator notification, manifests, and the federal record retention periods.

One point the brief for this page got wrong, and we would rather state the rule than repeat a date we cannot find. Rule 391-3-11 contains no small quantity generator re-notification deadline of 1 September 2025 and no four-year cycle. What it does require is notification to the Division on forms provided by the Director from generators, transporters, used-oil processors and TSD owners and operators, within 90 days after rules or revisions become effective — and it states that very small quantity generators are not required to notify. Confirm your own notification status with EPD rather than against a calendar date.

Sources: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-11, hazardous waste management

Georgia adds no universal waste category of its own

Rule 391-3-11-.18 reads, in its entirety on this point, that 40 C.F.R. Part 273 is hereby incorporated by reference. Nothing is added. There is no Georgia universal waste category for electronics, for CRTs or for anything else beyond the federal list of batteries, pesticides, mercury-containing equipment and lamps.

That is the opposite of New Jersey, where the state's own universal waste additions are exactly where enterprise equipment lands. In Georgia there is no softer intermediate category to fall into: equipment either fails a characteristic and is fully regulated hazardous waste, or it does not.

Sources: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-11, hazardous waste management

Penalties, and the drafting is lopsided

O.C.G.A. 12-8-30.6(a) caps the civil penalty against a public authority or a city or county government at not more than $1,000, plus $500 for each day the violation continues. For any other person — which is to say every private business in the state — the figure is $25,000.00 per day, for each day the violation continues.

Criminal exposure under 12-8-30.8(a) covers five kinds of knowing conduct, including transporting solid waste to an unpermitted facility, disposing without a permit, making a false statement in any application, label, manifest, record, report, permit, or other document, destroying or failing to file required records, and transporting without a required manifest. The penalty is a fine of not more than $50,000.00 for each day of violation, or imprisonment of one to two years — three for the first two paragraphs — and a repeat conviction doubles both. Subsection (b) reaches the entity: an organization can be convicted where the conduct was authorized, requested, commanded, or recklessly tolerated by the board of directors of the organization or by a managerial official who is acting within the scope of such official's employment on behalf of the organization.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 12-8-30.6, civil penalties · O.C.G.A. 12-8-30.8, criminal penalties

On the data, and the duty reaches drives directly

O.C.G.A. 10-15-2 provides that a business may not discard a record containing personal information unless it shreds the customer's record before discarding the record, erases the personal information contained in the customer's record before discarding the record, modifies the customer's record to make the personal information unreadable before discarding the record, or takes actions that it reasonably believes will ensure that no unauthorized person will have access to the personal information contained in the customer's record for the period between the record's disposal and the record's destruction.

It is not a paper statute. Record is defined at 10-15-1 as any material on which written, drawn, printed, spoken, visual, or electromagnetic information is recorded or preserved, regardless of physical form or characteristics. A decommissioned drive is squarely within that.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 10-15-2, disposal of customer records · O.C.G.A. 10-15-1, definitions

But the scope is narrower than it first looks

Personal information at 10-15-1 is not personal data at large. It is confined to four categories: information about a medical condition, an account or identification number together with a security or access code, information held for the purpose of opening an account or applying for a loan or credit, and information contained in a tax return. And it must belong to a customer — an individual who provides personal information to a business for the purpose of purchasing or leasing a product or obtaining a service from the business.

An HR server holding employee payroll records is not obviously covered, because an employee did not provide that information to purchase a product or obtain a service. The same structural gap Florida has, arrived at through a different definition. Banks subject to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and hospitals subject to HIPAA are excluded from the definition of business outright.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 10-15-1, definitions

There is a penalty, and it is frequently reported as absent

This is worth stating plainly because the contrary claim circulates widely. O.C.G.A. 10-15-6(a) provides that if the Attorney General determines, after notice and hearing, that a business has violated Code Section 10-15-2, the Attorney General may issue an administrative order imposing a penalty of not more than $500.00 for each customer's record that contains personal information that is wrongfully disposed of or discarded; provided, however, in no event shall the total fine levied by the Attorney General exceed $10,000.00.

It carries an affirmative defence: it shall be an affirmative defense to the wrongful disposing of or discarding of a customer's record that contains personal information if the business can show that it used due diligence in its attempt to properly dispose of or discard such records. Which is a direct argument for keeping the evidence of what a vendor did with the drives. Enforcement runs through the Attorney General under 10-15-5, with all investigative powers available under the Fair Business Practices Act of 1975 including the power to issue investigative demands and subpoenas; hearings follow the Georgia Administrative Procedure Act; and 10-15-6(d) lets the Attorney General reduce the order to a superior court judgment with the same effect as a judgment rendered by the court.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 10-15-6, penalty · O.C.G.A. 10-15-5, enforcement

A source disagreement worth flagging, and we are not resolving it

The Georgia Attorney General's own consumer material describes the shred-or-erase duty and attributes it to O.C.G.A. Section 10-15-1. That section is the definitions section. The operative prohibition is at 10-15-2, and 10-15-6(a) ties the penalty specifically to a violation of Code Section 10-15-2 rather than to Chapter 15 generally.

We cite both. Where the two disagree the statute controls, and anyone quoting the Attorney General's citation in a contract or a policy document is quoting a definitions section as though it imposed a duty. The underlying description of the duty is accurate; only the section number is wrong.

Sources: Georgia Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division · O.C.G.A. 10-15-1, definitions · O.C.G.A. 10-15-2, disposal of customer records

And here Georgia inverts the usual pattern

The breach-notice duty at O.C.G.A. 10-1-912(a) runs only to an information broker or data collector. Data collector is defined at 10-1-911 as state and local government agencies and their subdivisions. Information broker means a person who, for monetary fees or dues, is in the business of compiling personal information for the primary purpose of furnishing personal information to nonaffiliated third parties.

An ordinary Georgia business selling software, manufacturing parts or running a hospital laundry is neither, and so has no statutory breach-notice duty of its own. Yet it is unambiguously a business that may not discard a record containing personal information without shredding, erasing or modifying it first. Georgia is one of the few states in this directory where the media-sanitization duty is the broader of the two — and where the thing driving a sanitization decision is therefore the disposal statute, not the breach statute everyone reads first.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 10-1-912, breach notification · O.C.G.A. 10-1-911, definitions

And one nobody expects: selling the scrap can pull in the sheriff

Georgia regulates secondary metals recyclers through the sheriff rather than through an environmental agency. Under O.C.G.A. 10-1-359.1(a) it is unlawful for any secondary metals recycler to purchase regulated metal property in any amount without being registered, and registration is with the sheriff of each county in which the secondary metals recycler maintains a place of business, on a form promulgated by the Secretary of State, for a fee not to exceed $200.00. Each registration shall be valid for a 12 month period, and the record of each registration is entered into an electronic data base accessible statewide and searchable by all law enforcement agencies in this state. Violating that section is a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.

The record-keeping at 10-1-353 is what makes this feel unlike an environmental rule. A purchase transaction record includes the weight, quantity or volume and a description of the property, a digital photograph of the property, a scanned identification card of both the seller and the deliverer, the identification type and number, name and date of birth, and a photograph, videotape, or digital recording depicting a recognizable facial image of the seller and of the deliverer — retained for not less than two years.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 10-1-359.1, registration of secondary metals recyclers · O.C.G.A. 10-1-353, purchase transaction records · Georgia EPD, Georgia Secondary Metals Compliance Guide

Whether any of that reaches you is genuinely unsettled

The duties above sit on the buyer. But there is an exemption directly in the path of an enterprise seller, and we are presenting it as unresolved rather than answering it. O.C.G.A. 10-1-358 provides that the article shall not apply to purchases of regulated metal property from, among five other categories, a manufacturing, industrial, or other commercial vendor that generates or sells regulated metal property in the ordinary course of its business, provided that such vendor is not a secondary metals recycler.

A company that retires a rack every few years is a commercial vendor, and it is not a secondary metals recycler. Whether a periodic hardware refresh generates or sells regulated metal property in the ordinary course of its business is the whole question, and the statute does not define ordinary course. Read one way the exemption removes the photograph, the scanned identification and the database entry entirely; read the other way it does not. Note also that the duty is not purely one-sided: 10-1-353(d) makes it a violation for a seller to sign the statutory ownership statement knowing it to be false, subjecting the seller to the civil and criminal liability provided in Code Section 10-1-359.2. Ask a prospective buyer whether it holds a current sheriff's registration, and expect the answer to matter more than the exemption does.

Sources: O.C.G.A. 10-1-358, purchases exempted from the article · O.C.G.A. 10-1-353, purchase transaction records

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division — Land Protection Branch. It administers solid waste under Subject 391-3-4 and hazardous waste under Subject 391-3-11, and that is the whole of the machinery a business retiring IT equipment interacts with.

Sources: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-4, solid waste management · Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 391-3-11, hazardous waste management

There is no electronics programme office and no vendor list

EPD maintains no electronics recycler registry, no approved-vendor list and no stated preference that a business use a certified recycler. Its recycling page points to third-party national resources. Florida's environmental agency at least recommends third-party certification while declining to keep a list; Georgia does not go that far, because there is no programme for it to attach the recommendation to.

Which leaves third-party certification as the only verification available in Georgia. There is no state list to cross-reference a vendor against, so the certificate, its scope and its status are the evidence — and this directory carries no Georgia registration marker for any vendor, because there is no Georgia registration to carry.

Sources: Georgia EPD, recycling and waste reduction resources