e-waste - Let's see some action! - Peter Judge

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 19 2011)

1. 

   Last week saw the largest investigation by Britain’s Environment Agency (EA) come to fruition as a record 14 alleged e-waste dumpers were brought to court. But most people believe there are many more people getting away with it.

   The fourteen defendants - including individuals and organisations - are accused of illegally exporting e-waste, or WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) to developing countries.

   It is fine to send working second-hand equipment abroad where it can be used. But it is a crime to send non-working kit abroad, because in Africa and South America, old electronics are stripped to their component parts and valuable elements reclaimed, in toxic facilities where children and adults risk their health.

   Now Europe and the US have plenty of rules to limit the amount of e-waste which ends up in the deadly shipments to the developing world, but they have a way of getting watered down as they become law, and the agencies whose job it is to monitor and catch the law-breakers are stretched to the point where a lot of people believe they can simply get away with just disposing of kit any way they see fit.

   Recycling electronics (or as some call it, e-cycling) is a good thing, but it should be done in the country where the kit is used, and it should be done safely. A local industry can spring up that turns old equipment either into useful second-user systems, or else into components that can be reused, or into materials that can be recycled.

   But there has to be proper oversight - or else material which is intended for recycling gets taken abroad, where recycling it will kill people.

   The US Consumer Electronic Association started the eCycling Leadership initiative last week, which aims to recycle a billion pounds (in weight) of WEEE each year by 2016. That is three times as much as was recycled in 2010.

   That is a good aim, but activists have warned the initiative could actually be counter-productive, because it fails to provide the controls, and without them ecycling can shade over into exporting waste. The Basel Action Network (BAN)  has warned that the CEA’s initiative includes recycling companies which have not signed up to the international agreements governing the handling of e-waste.

   When the public thinks of recycling, they do not envisage their old computers and TVs being smashed and burned in China, India or Nigeria," said BAN's executive director Jim Puckett in a statement reported by Reuters. "And yet despite the CEA statement that 'the use of recyclers and downstream processors who dump end-of-life electronics in developing nations' should not be allowed, they continue to offer no concrete commitment to abide by the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment, which make such exports illegal, period."

   It’s clear that e-waste is going to continue to cause illness and injury until the organisations involved take it seriously and put some muscle into promoting the international agreements - and catching the dumpers who flout them.

   The fourteen who appeared in court in Basildon last week are accused, and innocent till proven guilty. But the sight of e-waste cases in the courts is, in my view, a very good sign indeed. 

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