Update: The E-Trash Story
WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE OLD COMPUTERS YOU DROPPED OFF AT THE RECYCLING FAIR? GLEE OFFICIALS SAY THEY HAVE PRACTICED DUE DILLIGENCE TO ENSURE THAT DISPOSAL IS SAFE AND GREEN
by Dennis Reeves Cooper
Two weeks ago, Key West The Newspaper (KWTN) published a feel-good feature story about a recycling fair at Key West High School being sponsored by GLEE-- Green Living & Energy Education. One of the services being offered at the fair was the free collection of old computers and other electronic equipment. The collection service was being provided by Recycled PC Parts out of Miami, a division of Scrap Integrated Recycling (SIR), based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The story praised GLEE and SIR for providing the service in an effort to keep this “ewaste”— and the toxic materials that much of this equipment contains— out of landfills.
Computers are sleek, high-tech marvels, but inside, they contain poisons like lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, and polyvinyl chlorides. Experts say that all these materials have known toxicological effects that range from brain damage to kidney disease to mutations and cancers. After the story appeared, a number of readers alerted KWTN to a recent “60 Minutes” broadcast that alleged that a number of big recycling companies— rather than safely recycling all of the e-waste they collect— are illegally shipping some of it overseas to toxic waste dump sites, where it is often dismantled by low-income workers, including children.
Here is how “60 Minutes” introduced the topic: “60 Minutes is going to take you to one of the most toxic places on Earth— a place government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see. It’s a town in China where you can’t breathe the air or drink the water, a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead.”
Although international treaties and U.S. government regulations make the export of much toxic e-waste illegal, much of the old electronic equipment in the Chinese dump that “60 Minutes” discovered, as well as in dumps in many other countries, come from the United States.
One Chinese city, Guiyu, has been ruined by pollution from a huge dump filled with old electronic equipment. Drinking water has to be trucked in. Scientists who have studied the area say that Guiyu has the highest levels of cancercausing diocins in the world.
A report released this year by the U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO), identified 43 recycling companies where company officials had allegedly told undercover government investigators that they would be willing to illegally ship e-waste overseas. But when KWTN obtained a copy of that report, we learned that none of those companies were identified by name.
We were referred to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is reportedly conducting criminal investigations that involve some or all of these companies. But EPA officials would not identify any of the companies, either.
But “60 Minutes” was able to identify at least one of those companies— Executive Recycling, based in Colorado.
Although “60 Minutes” had been able to track an illegal shipment of electronic waste from Executive Recycling to China, a lawyer for that company said that, although at least one illegal shipment had been made in the company’s name, it was made without the company’s permission.
The big question here may be this: If the U.S. government will not identify recycling companies suspected of wrongdoing, how are local non-profit green organizations— like GLEE— expected to know which companies they should invite to participate in recycling fairs, and which companies should be avoided?
“We have been working with SIR for three years,” said GLEE President Alison Higgins, “and we have no reason to believe that they are anything but the responsible recycling company they claim to be.” And she provided a “statement of commitment” from the company, which promised that the company would abide by the provisions of the Basel Convention-- the international treaty that attempts to regulated the export of toxic e-waste.
But Executive Recycling, the company exposed by the “60 Minutes” broadcast, also had a statement of commitment.
So GLEE is now taking “due diligence” to the next level. “As a result of the new information exposed by ‘60 Minutes,’ GLEE is now requiring that SIR be listed as an ‘eSteward’ on the Basel Action Network (BAN) before we sign a new contact with them,” Higgins said. “In 2010, when BAN institutes a third-party certification, GLEE will be able to rely on that criteria, as well.”
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