R2v3 Certified Facilities in Illinois

The Consumer Electronics Recycling Act — 415 ILCS 151, signed 25 August 2017 as Public Act 100-433 and operative from program year 2019 — replaced the earlier Electronic Products Recycling and Reuse Act. Public Act 104-0274 substantially amended it in 2025, expanding covered categories from eight to nine and expressly adding small-scale servers, home audio components, peripherals and tablets. The Act is scheduled to be repealed 31 December 2031.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act · Public Act 104-0274

The ban applies to you

415 ILCS 151/1-83 prohibits four separate acts, each phrased “no person may knowingly cause or allow”: mixing a covered device with municipal waste bound for landfill; disposing of one in a sanitary landfill; mixing one with waste bound for incineration; and burning or incinerating one. The operative phrase for a business is “or any other” — the ban reaches a CED, or any other computer, computer monitor, printer, television, electronic keyboard, facsimile machine, videocassette recorder, portable digital music player, digital video disc player, video game console, electronic mouse, scanner, digital converter box, cable receiver, satellite receiver, digital video disc recorder, or small-scale server.

Because the ban lists device types independently of the defined term, it reaches equipment taken out of service from a commercial setting. Illinois EPA confirms it: the landfill ban applies to households, businesses, schools, and government agencies.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act · Illinois EPA, Electronics Recycling

And you are excluded from the program

The definition of covered electronic device at 415 ILCS 151/1-5 expressly excludes any device taken out of service from an industrial, commercial, library, traffic control, kiosk, security, governmental, agricultural or medical setting. And covered entity means only a residence, for program years 2019 through 2026.

So the prohibition binds you, the manufacturer-funded collection infrastructure does not serve you, and the state's collection sites are configured for residential drop-off. All obligation, no benefit — the clearest example in any state of a law written for a household and applied to a business.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act

One thing that changes in 2027

Public Act 104-0274 redefines covered entity from program year 2027 to mean a person delivering 7 or fewer CEDs to a program collection site or collection event, rather than a residence. A small business dropping off a handful of devices would fall inside the funded program for the first time. Anyone retiring at volume stays outside it.

Sources: Public Act 104-0274

A date conflict worth knowing about

We are flagging this rather than resolving it. The statute sets the landfill ban's effective date at 1 January 2019. Illinois EPA's FAQ page states the ban is effective 1 January 2026, and lists home audio components and CED peripherals among the banned items. The likely reconciliation is that the core ban has been in force since 2019 and the 2026 date reflects the categories newly added by Public Act 104-0274 — but the agency page does not say so, and both dates are stated as the effective date of the landfill ban.

Treat the ban as in force now.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act · Illinois EPA, Electronics Recycling FAQs · Public Act 104-0274

Penalties, and the classification matters more than the number

A knowing violation of the landfill ban by anyone other than a residential consumer is a petty offense punishable by a fine of $500, under 415 ILCS 151/1-50(f). A residential consumer faces $25, or $50 for a subsequent violation. And $500 is not the ceiling: the general civil penalty at 1-50(a) is $7,000 per violation except as otherwise provided in the Act, while administrative citation under Section 1-55 runs $1,000 per violation plus Pollution Control Board and Agency hearing costs and operates independently. Each device or each load could be charged separately.

$500 is trivial next to California's $70,000 per day. The classification is not — it is a criminal charge, brought by a State's Attorney or the Attorney General, carrying disclosure and reputational consequences a civil penalty of the same size would not.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act

The inversion worth understanding

415 ILCS 151/1-5 provides that a CED being collected, recycled or processed for reuse is not considered to be hazardous waste, household waste, solid waste, or special waste. That is close to the inverse of California, which classifies e-waste as universal hazardous waste and makes the generating business a handler by default. In Illinois, correctly routing equipment into a recycling channel affirmatively removes it from the waste-classification regime.

But the qualifier — to the extent allowed under federal and State laws and regulations — means the exemption collapses if the material turns out not to be genuinely destined for recycling. Which is the same structural risk as Ohio's by-product exemption, arrived at from the opposite direction. What your vendor actually does with the material determines whether the exemption held.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act

On the data — and Illinois goes further than most

Both duties sit in the Personal Information Protection Act, 815 ILCS 530. The disposal duty at 815 ILCS 530/40 requires a person to dispose of materials containing personal information in a manner that renders the personal information unreadable, unusable, and undecipherable; for electronic and non-paper media that means destruction or erasure so the information cannot practicably be read or reconstructed. The penalty is not more than $100 for each individual whose information is disposed of in violation, capped at $50,000 for each instance of improper disposal. Financial institutions under 15 U.S.C. 6801 et seq. and persons subject to 15 U.S.C. 1681w are exempt.

The part that matters for chain of custody is 815 ILCS 530/40(c). A person may contract with a third party to dispose of such materials — and that third party must implement and monitor compliance with policies and procedures that prohibit unauthorized access to or acquisition of or use of personal information during the collection, transportation, and disposal of those materials. Illinois extends the standard to the vendor in transit, not merely at the point of destruction. Very few states say that explicitly.

Sources: 815 ILCS 530/40

Breach notification

Under 815 ILCS 530/10, notice is required in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Illinois sets no fixed outer deadline comparable to Texas's 60 days. Notice must include consumer reporting agency and FTC contacts, and must not include the number of Illinois residents affected.

Sources: 815 ILCS 530/10

Illinois EPA, at EPA.Recycling@illinois.gov. The agency accepts no electronics itself. Illinois does maintain a statutory recycler registry — 415 ILCS 151/1-40(b) requires the Agency to publish a list of all registered recyclers, registration is mandatory for recyclers handling CEDs under a manufacturer's program, and the Agency may deny it for repeated violations, specified felony convictions, or gross carelessness or incompetence.

But the duty to use a registered recycler runs to manufacturers, not to you. 415 ILCS 151/1-30(d) requires manufacturers to ensure only registered recyclers are used. CERA contains no parallel command directed at a business retiring its own equipment.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act · Illinois EPA, collectors, recyclers and refurbishers

Why the registry is still the best contractual benchmark in any of these states

Illinois' registered-recycler standards are the most demanding of the states covered here, and worth writing into a contract even though the statute does not compel it. Under 415 ILCS 151/1-40(d) a registered recycler must carry commercial general liability of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence and $1,000,000 aggregate, plus pollution legal liability of $1,000,000 per occurrence for dismantling-only operations or $5,000,000 for recycling operations; complete an annual environmental health and safety audit by a competent internal and external auditor; provide financial assurance for closure and stockpile cleanup; and dismantle and store hazardous components indoors over impervious floors.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act

And two that bear directly on an ITAD buyer

Under 1-40(d)(12) a registered recycler must employ industry-accepted procedures for destruction or sanitization of data on hard drives and other storage devices, with NIST's Guidelines for Media Sanitization and NAID-certified guidelines named as acceptable. A registered Illinois recycler is therefore already under a statutory data-sanitization duty. And under 1-40(d)(13) no registered recycler may employ prison labor, or engage a third party that uses or subcontracts for prison labor, in collection, transportation or recycling.

The statute names NIST's Guidelines for Media Sanitization without a revision. NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 was withdrawn on 26 September 2025 and superseded by Rev. 2. A recycler conforming to Rev. 1 today is conforming to a withdrawn document, and the statute does not tell it otherwise.

Sources: 415 ILCS 151, Consumer Electronics Recycling Act

A facility can be registered with Illinois EPA without being certified, and certified without being registered. This directory does not currently cross-reference the two, so a listing here is not a statement about Illinois EPA registration either way — check the Agency's list separately.

Sources: Illinois EPA, collectors, recyclers and refurbishers