Browse
Engage
Research
A new report just published by the Basel Action Network and the Electronics Takeback Coalition is highlighting the many issues and pitfalls around how the United States deals with electronic waste.
The report concerns an Oklahoma-based e-waste recycler, a series of free public e-waste collection drives in western Pennsylvania, and the sticky morass that is U.S. e-waste export rules.
A little background: BAN and Electronics Takeback have long been advocating for responsible e-waste policies in the U.S. Because this country is the only developed nation that hasn't yet ratified the Basel Convention on toxic wastes, the U.S. is able to import and export all types of hazardous materials, with the sole exception being for cathode-ray tube televisions and monitors, provided that proper notice is given to the EPA.
 |
Electronic waste is a huge problem, containing both a large number of highly toxic materials and hard-to-recycle compounds; but there are valuable materials in electronics that can be harvested and potentially reused or sold on the commodities market. An expose by the television news program 60 Minutes last year explored how toxic e-waste harvesting can be. Given the choice between landfilling millions of pounds of electronics containing lead, mercury and other toxins, and collecting it for supposedly eco-friendly recycling, it's not a difficult decision to make.
But the report from BAN looks at how e-waste collection projects, no matter how green they're promised to be, can end up being part of the problem.
As part of their preparation for Earth Day, BAN looked around the country for free e-waste collection drives. Free collection drives fall into a simple rule of thumb, according to Barbara Kyle, the national coordinator for the Electronics Takeback Coalition: follow the money.
"If you have someone who is going to take all your stuff, including TVs, for free, then stop right there: they're going to be exporting," Kyle explained.
What BAN found was less common, and raised more red flags, than just a free drive: an Oklahoma-based e-waste company called Earth ECycle was holding a collection drive in western Pennsylvania as a benefit for the Humane Society in the region.
"If you've got a recycler who's taking this for free, and paying a charity for it, then there's only one way to generate revenue from taking stuff from people's basement and garages," Sarah Westervelt, BAN's e-Stewardship Director, told me, "that's to export it."
Lee Nesler, the executive director of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, told me that the events in the region netted over a million pounds of discarded electronics, and will earn the group about $150,000 in donations from Earth ECycle.
BAN staked out the collection drive, and followed the trucks that left the collections warehouses in Pittsburgh and Monroeville, Pa. From those warehouses, following some "offloading and reloading" of the trucks, per the BAN report, the containers went overseas. Most were shipped to Hong Kong with destinations beyond to Vietnam or elsewhere, and a final container was shipped to South Africa.
 |
The problem, in addition to concerns about exports of e-waste in violation of U.S. and international law, is that Earth ECycle pledges to keep all e-waste in the U.S. for processing. When BAN contacted Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department warning about incoming shipments of potentially illegal waste, the authorities there refused the containers and shipped them back to the U.S.
In an email interview, Earth ECycle's CEO, Jeffrey Nixon, explained that his company recalled the shipments, and what comes next for the containers. "When all of the containers come back, we will verify contents and seal to insure we are the ones responsible, take them back to a warehouse in NJ, sort, separate and resell the items to a well qualified buyer," Nixon wrote.
There are more wrinkles in this story than can reasonably be explained in a blog, but it's worth noting that neither of the warehouses that Earth ECycle sent the collected materials to contain recycling or dismantling equipment, that the materials did obviously end up being shipped overseas, contrary to the company's claims, and that Earth ECycle has an account on Exporters.sg, an import-export website, where the company offers for sale container-loads of electronic scrap.
Nixon disputes the claims of the BAN report, and says that he will take responsibility to correct mistakes like the shipping of these electronics overseas. But regardless of the specifics of this case, it highlights a serious problem with U.S. e-waste policy.
According to Barbara Kyle, this kind of export is pretty standard in the industry. "When it comes to these public collection events where people can take their stuff in for free, and which are not paid for by state programs, this is a pretty common thing," she said. "Everyone thinks they're doing the right thing [by bringing their electronics in for recycling], but people have no idea that these are going on a container and going overseas."
And once these electronics have been collected, it's difficult to keep them from being imported, even among the 140 countries that are signatories to the Basel Convention. The report says that Hong Kong authorities can only inspect a few containers per day for contraband, and that about 50 containers per day of e-waste get past the inspections, destined for mainland China.
"There's no global police force enforcing the Basel Convention," Sarah Westervelt explained. "...These containers make it through their customs process, usually in violation of their laws, and they get opened up and 'recycled' using very toxic technologies. The end result is you've got these immortal heavy metals dispersed into their environment, impacting human health and the environment for the long term."
Groups like BAN and the Electronics Takeback Coalition have been working on both the policy and the action front. While federal e-waste legislation was introduced last week by Rep. Gene Green, Kyle and Westervelt both said that the proposed rule has been corrupted by loopholes that would allow the exporting of this type of waste.
But BAN has also been working on a market solution to the e-waste disposal problem in the U.S. Late last year, they launched E-Stewards, a certification that recognizes the most responsible e-waste handling practices around. After six years of developing the standard and the list of companies that meet E-Stewards criteria, BAN has nearly completed the process to make E-Stewards an independently audited certification. A pilot verification of the label will begin at the end of 2009, and the certification is expected to launch in February 2010.
In the meantime, individuals, businesses and non-profits like the Humane Society bear the bulk of the burden in sorting through the complexities of responsible e-waste disposal.
You can download the full report from http://BAN.org [PDF], and be sure to check out all of GreenerComputing.com's e-waste news and resources.
eWaste Caution
Adopting legislation or a standard like eStewards, developed collaboratively with the Basal Action Network, can go a long way toward mitigating the flagrant disregard of the Basel Convention.
Selecting vendors whom have obtained ISO 14001, R2 or eStewards certifications can help as well. However, none of these entirely solve the problem as many of the auditors are not yet familiar enough with the industry to identify inconsistancies with the law or even with the recyclers own policies.
Many U.S. electronics recyclers are likely still completely ignorant to international law. There ARE responsible recyclers who can document and provide evidence of where everything goes. Consult with an auditor that is familiar with the industry if you are serious about ensuring your existing or potential vendor is managing materials properly.
Half the story, Fair Trade Ewaste is a win-win possibility
I have an electronics recycling company and I have visited China, Malaysia, Singapore, Egypt, Mexico, Lithuania and other countries electronics scrap and "ewaste" importing operations. While I would not dispute that operations BAN describes exists, they are largely a biproduct of extremely large and well-run operations which pay top dollar for computers Americans are too affluent to fix or resell. Economically China cannot pay $5000 per container for what BAN shows on the ground, and does not. What is happening is that good USA companies and entire states (like CA) are blindly destroying good product (in reaction to films like this), and the buyers for the factories turn to lowest common denominator USA companies with less labor who ship more junk. Google WR3A or Fair Trade Recycling if you want to hear more than trite sound bites about ewaste.
The factories are actually the same ones that made your monitor ten years ago, as an outsource for major brands. Some have become so good at refurbishing that they present a threat to major brands, who are fanning BAN's flames as a protectionist strategy.
So are you going to just observe?
This goes back to the clash between
ideology and pragmatism.
The situation is global, and being global means
everyone is effected and also took part in it.
Directly in terms of your example, the market for
cheap electronics is big and wide in this world
consumer capital we call America.
If there isn't any need, well then there shouldn't
be this mess.
But we all enjoy the products, and justifying the lack
of competitiveness of American electronics solely
on how deep regulations throughout production process
is like blaming games for teaching kids violence:
it's dangerous generalization.
What we should be concerned is how we as a global
community can get rid of this problem. Each in our
community and in our minds should have awareness
about this issue.
Think people. This issue and the issue of
plastic soup island appearing in the pacific ocean
is not something we can just blame and expect
someone else to take care of it.
You say countries with awareness of the environment
and chose to do something about it get punished in
the long term.
What you lacked to observe is that it's a short term
effect. In the long term, if you could broaden
your perspective more, the effort led by the
developed nations WILL be noticed and trickle down.
Ideologies NEED some entity to realize.
back where it came from...
Everything electronic is manufactured in far east anyway. If they're landfilling it rather than recycling it, or if they're recycling it in hazardous ways, then don't you think that is a regulatory issue in the Asian nations which engage in such activity?
If Chinese-mined mercury eventually gets disposed in a Chinese landfill, yes that's very unfortunate, but really it is a Chinese problem.
And guess what? Most of the reason Asian electronics are cheap is that there are no enforced environmental laws over there, and no labor unions either. In many cases, Asian wives are soldering the parts together on their house boats. If developing Asian countries had to pay for environmental enforcement infrastructures and labor unions, the production processes would be very different and the prices of manufactured goods would be far higher, making American electronics somewhat more competitive.
Ultimately what we are seeing is the negative progress brought by globalism to the domains of global ecology, equality, safety and health.
Any country that enacts strict environmental laws gets punished in the long term, since the manufacturing base moves elsewhere.
Sick, but true.