Stone Castle Recycling, previously one of Utah's largest recyclers of electronic waste, has abandoned its three facilities and the owner is missing. The company has ceased all operations and has left behind several warehouses and yards filled with an estimated 7,600 tons of toxic electronic wastes and charred residues.
Read MoreBasel Action Network and our e-Stewards recycler/refurbisher certification program is currently undertaking two initiatives to promote responsible electronics refurbishment. The efforts are designed to reflect the environmental and social preference for longevity, reuse, and refurbishment of electronic equipment rather than disposal or recycling.
Read MoreCalifornia has the strictest e-waste laws in the nation, but a KPIX5 investigation discovered the strict laws have led to dumping CA's electronic junk in someone else’s backyard, causing serious damage.
A mountain in the Arizona desert that’s not on any map was discovered five years ago. A closer look reveals the mountain is made of glass from old TVs and monitors, full of lead and other toxic heavy metals. Most of it, some 41 million pounds, is from California.
Read MoreSamsung has finally made a public apology to the victims of a leukemia cluster at its chip plants and promised compensation for them — seven years after the SHARPS campaign borne out of the death of Hwang Yu-mi, the first publicly known victim of the cluster, and six months after stalled negotiations with the victims’ families and the advocate group.
Read MoreFollowing a serious fire at a yard full of electronic waste in Parowan, Utah, the environmental watchdog group, the Basel Action Network has completed an initial investigation and report of the fire site.
Read MoreOfficials in China have discovered nearly 80,000 tons of e-scrap illegally imported from Europe, Japan and the U.S.
Read MoreThe annual e-scrap market is expected to reach nearly $41.4 billion by 2019, more than four times its 2012 value of $9.8 billion.
Read MoreConcerned about a possible limitation on the ability of those exercising their right to free speech to avoid being harassed by frivolous but costly defamation lawsuits, major media outlets including National Public Radio, CNN, the Washington Post, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and Time Magazine, filed an Amicus Brief last Friday supporting the appeal of the Basel Action Network (BAN).
BAN is a Seattle-based global environmental watchdog organization that was sued by an electronics recycler. In 2011, BAN spoke out against Chicago area electronics recycling firm, Intercon Solutions, after documenting the export of hazardous electronic waste from Intercon’s Chicago Heights facility to Hong Kong, China.
Read MoreBasel Action Network, well known for discovering the global dumping of electronic waste in Asia, has joined forces with CBS News in California to expose a new type of dumping, this time in Arizona.
BAN found three warehouses in Yuma, Arizona, holding what is believed to be more than 9 million pounds of abandoned toxic picture tubes from old TVs and computer monitors originally collected by the California state Recycling Program.
Dow Management, the alleged recycling company that held the glass in Yuma, has disappeared and the principals are nowhere to be found. Dow was paid more than $581,000 by California Recyclers to take the glass, who were in turn paid $3.6 million from a California legislated recycling fund.
Read MoreGlobal electronics and appliance innovator LG Electronics has received high praise from the toxic trade watchdog group Basel Action Network for ensuring that none of LG’s e-waste is exported to developing countries.
BAN applauded LG Electronics USA for confirming that all of its customer take-back programs and all of its own office equipment is recycled responsibly through certified e-Stewards® recyclers. LG is even in the process of certifying its own Service Center under the e-Stewards program.
Read MoreIn the wake of significant prison sentences of 14 and 30 months being handed down by U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martinez against the executives Tor Olson and Brandon Richter of Denver, Colorado's Executive, the toxic trade watchdog group, Basel Action Network, thanked the US Environmental Protection Agency and Homeland Security for their diligent prosecution. BAN warned consumers that the crime of e-waste exportation remains all too common.
Read MoreLike voracious ants, the columns of workers set about their task, stripping the gargantuan gray hulks down to nothing. This coastal strip of southeastern Bangladesh is where some of the oceans’ largest vessels meet their end, turned into scrap by thousands of men and, sadly, children.
Read MoreDeveloping countries joined forces this week to defeat attempts by electronic equipment manufacturers represented by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and industrialized powers including the European Union, US, Japan, and Canada to create loopholes that would allow repairable electronic waste to be exempt from the international Basel Convention hazardous waste trade control procedures.
Read MoreAt this week’s meeting of the Basel Convention – an international treaty designed to protect developing countries from international toxic waste dumping -- computer and other electronic equipment manufacturers are pressing hard for exemptions from established controls on the export of electronic waste or e-waste. The proposed exemptions would allow untested or non-functional electronic waste, often containing toxic lead, cadmium, mercury and brominated flame retardants to be considered a non-waste and subject to free-trade in many circumstances so long as the exporter can claim that that the old equipment might be ‘repairable’.
Read MoreWidely varying state regulations “generally depress exports” of used electronic products while increasing compliance costs and inefficiencies throughout the industry , according to a new study from the International Trade Commission.
Read MoreFor years now, Perry Gottesfeld has been globe-trotting in search of lead paints. These have been banned for decades from U.S. and European buildings because they poison children as they deteriorate. But as Gottesfeld, executive director of the U.S.-based NGO Occupational Knowledge International, and others have been showing, there’s still plenty of lead paint for sale in developing nations.
Read MoreA record-breaking number 365 toxic-laden ships were sent for breaking by European shipowners to the beaches of South Asia in 2012, according to a list released today by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a global coalition of environmental, human rights and labor rights organisations working for safe and sustainable ship recycling. This number represents a 75% increase from 2011, when 210 EU-owned ships were sent for breaking in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Read MoreFollow Up:
Letter to permanent representations
A trial by jury convicted Executive Recycling, formerly of Englewood, Colorado and two of its top executives in a Denver Federal Court this morning for illegally exporting hazardous waste electronics to developing countries. Executives Tor Olson and Brandon Richter were convicted of criminal charges for illegal export of hazardous waste, smuggling, obstruction of justice, and wire and mail fraud. Brandon Richter was the former owner and CEO of Executive, an electronics recycler that also had locations in Utah and Nebraska. Executive Recycling has since changed its name to Techcycle. The charges came after the Basel Action Network (BAN), a toxic trade watchdog organization, observed and photographed 20 seagoing containers leaving the Executive Recycling loading docks and tracked them overseas. BAN then gave the information to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Enforcement, the Government Accountability Office, and CBS News. Executive Recycling was then featured in a sting type investigation on CBS News' 60 Minutes in an episode entitled “The Wasteland” which followed one of Executive's containers to China with BAN's Executive Director Jim Puckett. Following that episode, EPA Enforcement and Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), indicted Executive Recycling on 16 criminal counts. BAN claims that the export activities of the company are still a very common practice in North America and most often companies get away with it.
“This conviction is very welcome, but sadly as we speak, there are many hundreds of other fake recyclers out there that are loading up Asian-bound containers full of our old toxic TVs and computers,” said Puckett. “Every day about 100 containers of toxic e-waste arrive in the Port of Hong Kong alone. We hope this conviction sends a very strong message to business and the public that they should only use the most responsible recyclers.”
To help the public make good choices for their electronic waste (e-waste), BAN joined forces with business leaders to create the e-Stewards Certification program. e-Stewards is the only electronic recycling certification program that ensures through annual audits that companies will never export hazardous wastes electronics to developing countries. Areas like Guiyu township in China have been seriously contaminated by toxic e-waste imports. Lead levels in the blood of children there are some of the highest in the world.
BAN also maintains that clear and strict legislation is needed to make such export activity explicitly illegal in the United States as it is in the rest of the world. According to BAN, prosecuting the Executive case was very difficult for the government as they were forced to make their case using fraud, smuggling, and other charges, as the environmental export laws we have are vague and ineffective. BAN has joined forces with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, as well as the Coalition for American Electronics Recycling (CAER) in support of the bipartisan Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, which, if passed, will bring the US in compliance with international Basel Convention decisions forbidding export of hazardous electronic waste to developing countries.
“Executive Recycling was caught this time,” Puckett said, “but it has been almost impossible for the government to prosecute this kind of very common activity due to a lack of appropriate legislation. If we can pass the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act in Congress we could put a quick halt to the horrors of criminal waste trafficking.”
The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) has adopted a new policy that effectively terminates the federal artificial reefing program that allowed the scuttling of old ships for so-called “artificial reefs” – a practice that dates back to the Liberty Ship Act of1972. Since the program’s inception, approximately 45 ships have been disposed of at sea, along with untold tons of toxic substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals built into each vessel, as well as many millions of dollars worth of steel and non-ferrous metal resources. U.S. based environmental organization Basel Action Network (BAN), which has actively campaigned against the government-sponsored ocean dumping program, hails this news as a victory for U.S. jobs in the domestic ship recycling industry and a win for the environment. “The Obama Administration got this one right, and they should be commended for finally putting into place a more conservative policy that protects our resources, our jobs, as well as the marine environment,” said Colby Self of the Basel Action Network.
MARAD’s new policy has not been announced publicly but became effective on 29 May 2012, according to Curt Michanczyk, Director of the Office of Ship Disposal of the Maritime Administration. MARAD’s new policy excludes from artificial reefing consideration of any vessel that was built before 1985 (and likely to contain PCBs). PCBs are a persistent toxic chemical family that is described by the U.S. EPA as potentially carcinogenic to humans and builds-up in the marine food chain. They are banned from use and production under the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act.
Currently, all 38 so called “non-retention” ships that are designated for disposal in MARAD’s National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF), mostly made up of ex-naval vessels, were built before 1985 and will thus all go to domestic recyclers. Of all the 125 vessels owned by MARAD in the NDRF, all of which will be designated “non-retention” at some point in the future, only one of these vessels was built after 1985. This is the only vessel that could be considered for artificial reefing when it is designated for disposal, but only if it is not viable for recycling within two years after disposal designation.
There is little doubt that the post-sinking monitoring study of the sunken Ex-Oriskany aircraft carrier in Florida played an important role in the development of MARAD’s new policy. This study, conducted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, was not publicly available until BAN highlighted its findings in their July 2011 report entitled Dishonorable Disposal: The Case Against Dumping U.S. Naval Vessels at Sea. The study found PCB migration into the marine food chain from the sunken aircraft carrier Ex-Oriskany and for the first time called into question the practice of sinking ships containing toxic bioaccumulative substances.
The U.S. Navy’s artificial reefing policy also appears to be heading in a similar direction as MARAD’s, as evidenced by the Navy’s sudden decision last year to recycle the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal and three other carriers, rather than scuttle them. This decision came in 2011 following a shorter BAN report and submission to the Navy, entitled Jobs and Dollars Overboard: The Economic Case Against Dumping U.S. Naval Vessels at Sea, highlighting the favorable economics of recycling. The Navy later informed BAN that the decision to recycle these vessels was made on economic grounds due to the price of scrap commodities.
BAN applauds the government for rejecting the “dump first” MARAD policy in favor of recycling but is now seeking a similar stance with respect to the Navy’s SINKEX (sinking exercise) program. SINKEX sinks non-retention vessels during live-fire target practice without complete removal of toxic pollutants, including PCBs. Sinking preparation for SINKEX is much less stringent than required of artificial reef preparation, as the EPA exempted the Navy and SINKEX from environmental regulations that would otherwise require removal of regulated concentrations of PCBs. Since this exemption in 1999, the Navy has sunk 117 vessels, the most recent of which included three sinkings near Hawaii in July 2012.
Approximately $20.5 million in fully recoverable scrap steel, aluminum and copper and hundreds of recycling jobs were lost with the scuttling of these three vessels. A fourth vessel is planned for sinking in 2012 via SINKEX in the coming months. BAN has joined with the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity in a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for continuing to allow the SINKEX program to sink toxic vessels at sea.
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