America's Toxic Electronic Waste Trade

« Text 23 America's Toxic Electronic Waste Trade The U.S.

is the only developed nation that does not ban exports of toxic discarded electronics.

usnews.com By Tom Risen | Staff Writer April 22, 2016 (468 words: 105-130 words maximum). Americans line up in droves every year to buy new gadgets, but the discarded older models of devices are too often shipped by recycling firms to foreign countries to avoid the cost of processing the toxic scrap.

Electronics recycling is becoming less profitable as tech companies try to save costs by using fewer rare minerals like gold and copper in their devices, while the resale value of commodities extracted by recycling like steel and oil-based plastics has declined sharply in recent years.

Hugo Neu Recycling CEO Robert Houghton says his firm faces increasing costs to dispose of old devices like phones and computers in an environmentally safe way, while other businesses that promise to do so cut costs by shipping them to nations like China.

“Responsible recyclers lose business every day to companies that ship electronic scrap overseas or simply dump it in warehouses instead of processing it,” says Houghton.

Improperly dumping electronics is dangerous because of the toxic materials in the discarded gadgets like lead, cadmium and mercury, which can seep into soil and groundwater, contaminate the air if they are burned or poison people handling them.

James Puckett, executive director of the industry watchdog Basel Action Network, says his group will debut a report in May that will expose the scope of exporting toxic scrap with results from electronic trackers that were covertly placed in discarded gadgets sent to different recyclers. “There is unfortunately a lot of egregious behavior going on in the name of electronics recycling,” Puckett says.

The U.S.

is technically allowed to ship electronic trash to foreign countries because it is the only nation in the developed world that has signed but not yet ratified the Basel Convention on hazardous waste.

China and Ghana are major destinations for American electronic trash, but this trade is a legal grey area because those nations are forbidden from importing such trash as two of the 183 parties to the international treaty.

Despite the importation ban, scrap dealers, repairmen and second-hand salesmen in nations like China and Ghana form what Houghton calls “informal cottage industries” by showing up at docks to buy the electronic waste and risk toxic exposure in the hope of making extra cash by recycling.

Mollie Lemon, a spokeswoman for the EPA, says the agency supports the Basel Convention, participates in its working group on environmentally safe management and regulates the export of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The EPA exempts most electronic waste as non-hazardous, however, except lead-lined glass cathode ray tubes used to build older models of TVs and computer monitors.

"While many used electronics and electronic waste items are not considered hazardous waste by the United States, any used or waste electronics considered to be hazardous would be managed under RCRA and its implementing regulations," Lemon says.. »