Electronic Recycling Companies that Don't Recycle - Beware

Posted on the Environmental Resource Center website - 1/14/2008

In the wake of the Christmas electronic-gadget buying season, the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Electronics TakeBack Coalition (ETBC) are cautioning consumers not to be fooled by the majority of nationwide businesses that call themselves electronics recyclers when in fact they don’t do any recycling, but ship old equipment to developing countries.

“We may think we’re doing the right thing by giving our old electronics to a ‘recycler’ or a free collection event,” said Sarah Westervelt, BAN’s e-Stewardship Program Director. “But most of those businesses calling themselves recyclers are little more than international waste distributors. They take your old equipment for free, or pocket your recycling fee, and then simply load it into a sea-going container and ship it to China, India, or Nigeria.”

According to BAN, once on foreign shores, your old computer or TV becomes part of a cyber-age horror story. In China, women and children breathe in the toxic solder vapors as they cook circuit boards, dioxins are produced when wires are burned, and microchips are washed in strong acid baths and flushed into the rivers as primitive metals extraction techniques take their toll on the local environment and the health of thousands of migrant farmers. In Nigeria, the imported techno-trash that is not repairable is dumped and burned in swamps. BAN revealed these sad truths as early as 2002 in their film and report, “Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia,” and again in another report and film entitled, “The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa," in 2005.

Unfortunately, according to BAN and ETBC, this waste trade continues unabated from the United States because the government refuses to ratify the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment—international accords prohibiting trade in hazardous waste to developing countries—and has otherwise expressed little interest in controlling its toxic waste exports as long as they are claimed to be destined for recycling or re-use. As such, U.S. e-waste exports are in contravention of international law, but not U.S. law, and thus U.S. “recyclers” are able to claim they abide by all environmental laws and are even "EPA approved."

To help distinguish between these exporters and the responsible recyclers and refurbishers, BAN and ETBC created the e-Stewards Initiative—a program identifying North America’s most responsible e-Waste recyclers that have agreed to adhere to strict criteria created by nonprofit environmental groups. The criteria require that no hazardous electronics equipment or parts (as defined internationally) be exported to developing countries, be processed by captive prison labor, or end up in landfills or incinerators. A list of responsible recyclers can be found at Basel Action Network (BAN) or [ Computer Take Back Campaign ]. Consumers are urged to avoid recyclers not on this list, including free e-waste collection events that do not state that they only use e-Stewards recyclers.

“We strongly urge all consumers to avoid all but those recyclers that have qualified as e-Stewards. If your local recycler has not qualified for the program, ask them to do so,” said Barbara Kyle, National Coordinator of ETBC. “Otherwise, while trying to do the right thing with recycling, you can unwittingly become a player in a global digital dumping game, and end up poisoning those in developing countries.”