I'm forwarding the following posting from the national circuit riders list - thought folks might be interested in one of the darker sides of our technology use.
Jon >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From: Adam Bernstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [Riders] What happens to your "recycled" equipment? >Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 10:59:22 -0800 >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >It seems that may be an important question to ask your local recycler >next time you try to do the right thing by bringing in your old computer >stuff. Those of us that deal with a steady flow of old equipment from >a large number of sources are that much more obligated to know about >this problem, I reckon. > > adam > >Group exposes America's dirty tech secret >Henry Norr >Monday, February 25, 2002 >�2002 San Francisco Chronicle > >URL: >http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/02/25/BU212924.DTL > >Amid terrorism, war, recession and Enron, I can sympathize if you feel you >don't have much bandwidth left over to worry about e-waste -- the millions >of tons of unwanted PCs, monitors, TVs, phones and other toxic-laden >electronic gear piling up in garages, closets and warehouses across the >country and around the world. > >But like it or not, the issue is too big, too concrete and potentially too >dangerous to stay under the rug much longer. And people who have come to >understand the stakes -- not just environmental activists, but also a fast- >growing band of state and local officials -- aren't going to let us leave it >there. > >DIRTY LITTLE SECRET >A report scheduled for release today provides devastating evidence of a >phenomenon that has long been suspected but never before documented: Huge >quantities of scrap electronics from the United States wind up in >impoverished regions of Asia, where valued material is extracted by >primitive methods that are highly dangerous to the health of the workers >involved and to the environment. > >Titled "Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia," the report will be >published jointly by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition of San Jose (on >whose site, www.svtc.org, it should be posted) and by the Basel Action >Network, a global group, based in Seattle, that seeks limits on >international trade in toxic material. > >Major contributions to the report were also made by three nongovernmental >organizations in Asia: Greenpeace China, Toxics Link India, and SCOPE >(Society for Conservation and Protection of the Environment) of Pakistan. > >Skeptics looking at that list may well suspect bias or exaggeration in the >report, but they will have a hard time explaining away the evidence the >authors provide: not just eyewitness accounts, but numerous photographs -- >and, coming soon, a video -- illustrating what they describe. > >Among the pictures: Chinese women, wearing no protective gear at all, >tending coal-fired grills used to melt lead solder from circuit boards; >others breaking open lead-laced CRTs with hammers; nitric and hydrochloric >acids being heated, giving off huge clouds of acrid gases, and then used to >extract bits of gold from computer chips, finally producing sludge that is >dumped in rivers and irrigation ditches; villages covered in black ash from >nightly fires, where cables covered with plastics and dangerous brominated >flame retardants are burned so the copper wire inside can be recovered; and >so on. > >As the report puts it, we're talking about 19th century methods used to >clean up the wastes of 21st century technology. > >The investigators who visited these sites weren't there long enough to do >any serious study of the health effects of these practices, but they did >bring back some evidence of the resulting environmental devastation. > >In Guiyu, a complex of villages in China's Guangdong Province that has been >transformed since 1995 from a rice-growing community into a center for >electronics reprocessing, groundwater pollution is so bad that drinking >water has to be trucked in from a town 30 kilometers away. > >Ground samples collected in the area by the environmentalists and analyzed >later in Hong Kong revealed concentrations of heavy metals that were >hundreds of times higher than allowed by guidelines from the World Health >Organization or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. > >The U.S. government actually signed the 1989 Basel Convention, a treaty that >limits and regulates international trade in toxic material, but we are one >of only three signatories that has not ratified the agreement. The other >two: Haiti and Afghanistan. (I am not making this up! See >www.basel.int/ratif/ratif.html#conratif.) > >In particular, our government -- starting with the Clinton administration -- >has adamantly opposed a 1994 amendment that banned the export of hazardous >wastes from rich to poor countries. The amendment, known as the Basel Ban, >isn't yet legally binding, but most developed countries, including the >European Union, have agreed to honor it. Not us, though. > > >YOU CALL THAT RECYCLING? >One of the ironies in all this is that the equipment in question apparently >gets to Asia by way of "recyclers" here at home. > >Among the variety of organizations that claim that label, none of the >nonprofits and only a few commercial operators are actually capable of >recycling all of the equipment they collect, in the sense of finding a new >home for it or reducing it to reusable materials. > >Most of them simply remove selected items -- either complete products that >are relatively modern and still in demand, or else readily salvageable >components such as memory modules. > >What's left they sell for pennies a pound to wholesale brokers, who may >extract some additional items but ultimately ship the remains to places like >the Philippines, Singapore or Dubai. There, apparently, it's sold yet again >to Asian companies, which then take it to villages like Guiyu or to the >slums of Delhi, Karachi and other cities. > >In other words, sad to say, even if you make a good-faith effort to get your >unwanted hardware recycled, you may be contributing to the problem. > > >S.F. CLEANUP, MISSOURI MESS >A similar sorry conclusion emerges from another recent expose, this one >involving not Asia but a little town in the American heartland. Herculaneum, >Mo., 30 miles south of St. Louis, has for more than 100 years been the home >of the nation's largest lead smelter, now called the Doe Run Co. (The same >company just got permission from the Bush administration to drill for lead >in the state's Mark Twain National Forest.) > >Doe run calls itself "a leader in environmental safety," and by some >measures, it has made significant progress in reducing toxic emissions from >its Herculaneum facility in recent years. > >It has even been "voluntarily" replacing contaminated soil from playgrounds, >school yards and backyards in the town since 1991. (See >www.doerun.com/ENGLISH/html/the_environment.htm for the company's side of >this story.) > >But the operation remains well out of compliance with federal emission >standards, and last year, when state officials got around to testing >children in the community of 2,800, they found that more than one in four >had blood lead levels exceeding legal limits. > >Just last week, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, tests on the yards >of 90 homes showed that in spite of the company's cleanup efforts, lead >levels had increased an average of 600 parts per million during the past >year; the federal standard for the maximum safe lead level where children >play is a total of 400 parts per million. > >Now the EPA is offering to put up many of these families in motels while >their homes and yards are cleaned again, and both federal and state >authorities are threatening to close the plant if it doesn't soon get >emissions down to legal levels. > >On CNN, Paula Zahn recently observed that "We haven't seen anything quite >like this since Love Canal." That's an exaggeration, but she's on to >something. > >But what does it have to do with us in the Bay Area? The story caught my eye >when it began to break a month or two back because I remembered that Doe Run >is where HMR USA, the Australian company that runs the only monitor- >recycling facility in San Francisco, sends the leaded glass that emerges >from its CRT crusher. > >Now, all the evidence I know of suggests that HMR is on the side of the >angels. It enjoys a good reputation among environmentalists, and its >crusher, for which the city contributed almost half the cost, is said to be >state of the art. On the whole, we're lucky to have such a facility >nearby -- few communities in the United States have any way of dealing >responsibly with old TVs and monitors. > >And yet it's almost certain that some of that lead poisoning the children of >Herculaneum comes from screens turned in by San Franciscans trying to do the >right thing. > > >TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY >Everybody knows that electronic equipment gets obsolete sooner or later -- >usually sooner. But as a society, we've mostly kept our heads in the sand >about its disposition after it's no longer useful. That has to change: We >need to plan ahead for a problem there's no avoiding. > >That means more effort and investment in reducing our use of toxic material. > >It means creating the infrastructure necessary to deal safely and >responsibly with all the products we use -- here at home, not in some >faraway land where we can hope that desperately poor people will take care >of the messes we've made. And it means building the costs of all this into >the prices we pay for our gear. > >Japan and the European Union are already moving in this direction, with >recently enacted laws that set goals for phasing out toxic materials and >that require manufacturers to take responsibility, one way or another, for >the products they sell. > >Two bills introduced in the state Senate last week point in those >directions. SB1523, introduced by Sen. Byron "Bottle Bill" Sher, D-Palo >Alto, would require consumers to pay an "advance disposal fee" when they >purchase any electronic device with a CRT. The funds would then be >distributed to local governments, nonprofit agencies and others who handle >recycled electronics. > >SB1619, sponsored by the nonprofit Californians Against Waste and introduced >by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Rosemead, is much broader in scope, applying not >just to CRTs but to all "hazardous electronic devices" -- which is to say, >virtually all high-tech devices. > >Romero's bill would require manufacturers either to implement take-back >programs or to pay an "advance recovery fee" on every product they sell. It >would set numerical targets for recovery and recycling of products, and if >those targets weren't met, a deposit system would be imposed. > >You can check out both bills for yourself at www.leginfo.ca.gov. I have lots >of questions about them, and I'm sure the industry will have objections and >alternatives to offer, some of which might make some sense, when hearings >begin in about six weeks. > >But compared with what's happening today in Asia, in Herculaneum, and at >plenty of places in between, these bills sure sound like a promising new >beginning to me. > >�2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page E - 1 >-- >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >* Tech consulting and outsourced email & list service for nonprofits * >* http://amberbug.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] 415-596-6384 * >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Jonathan Falk Pine Tree Folk School RR 2, Box 7162 Carmel, ME 04419 (207)848-2433 <http://www.ptfolkschool.org> **Folkschool-list archives are at: <http://www.mint.net/folkschool/helpnet/archives.htm> Sponsored by Pine Tree Folk School ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84vzQ.a9gqS3 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
