Posted on 05/13/2016 4:12:32 PM PDT by Lorianne
A two-year investigation of electronics recycling using GPS tracking devices has revealed that policies aimed at curtailing the trade in toxic e-waste have been unsuccessful, with nearly one third of the devices being exported to developing countries, where equipment is often dismantled in low-tech workshops — often by children — endangering workers, their families, and contaminating the surrounding environment.
A report from the Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle-based nonprofit devoted to ending the trade in toxic waste, raises major questions about U.S. government e-waste policies and oversight as well as the voluntary programs the electronics recycling industry relies on to ensure that this equipment is handled responsibly. BAN’s early data has already resulted in one major recycler losing an important certification as a responsible e-waste handler and launched state investigations into possible hazardous waste violations. The data BAN obtained with these tracking devices also shows equipment left at Goodwill, with whom Dell partners for recycling, was also exported.
Knowing that e-waste exports were ongoing and frustrated by recent federal government commissioned reports suggesting that these exports had dropped dramatically, BAN decided to physically track devices sent for recycling. “In our view those reports underestimated the export flows,” said BAN’s executive director Jim Puckett. “So we decided if the government is not going to use tracking devices, we will.”
BAN installed 200 GPS tracking devices into “used, non-functional computer equipment that its research team delivered to publicly accessible e-waste recycling drop-off sites around the U.S.” This equipment was left for recycling in more than a dozen states across the country between July 1, 2014, and December 31, 2015; 149 devices went to recyclers, 49 to thrift stores (mainly Goodwill) and two to retailers.
“What we found out is that quite a large percentage of this equipment is flowing offshore,” said Puckett. “These are like little lie detectors that we put out there. They tell their story and they tell it dispassionately.”
They say that as though it's a bad thing.
One would almost think that if liberals were sincere about hating the exploitation of children, they would want to bring this kind of thing back to the USA where it is easier to enforce a humane environment.
Because it is — how did you ever conclude differently?
Guess it's better they starve organically and die without any microscopic traces of lead in their bodies.
I would contest the premise of the whole article-- what exactly is so poisonous in regular electronic waste, assuming you don't eat it?
It’s bad because people aren’t dumping this stuff in our own landfills...or is it bad because these impoverished places are receiving income for dismantling it?
I mean, we could dump it in our own landfills. I really don’t care.
California is being surrendered to Mexico so fast, it matters not a bit to me what becomes of the environment 50 or 100 years from now. It will have ceased being America many decades previously.
Yes, really!
Developing countries can only develop if they can find niche industries they to exploit.
The country can start out doing nasty work that is not wanted elsewhere and eventually move up the economic ladder.
It might not be continuous with the political entity we know, but we shouldn’t be cavalier about poisoning the earth.
And it is because of this “prosperity” that the Yangtze was turned into a toxic sewer, and we probably won’t know the sacrifice in human health for decades if that because of the famous Chinese secrecy.
One does not have to be a spotted owl kissing greenie to deplore this.
It’s bad because for money they are poisoning themselves.
I’m not saying to do it intentionally. But at this point there no reason to not pollute the environment. It just doesn’t matter anymore.
Your despair should not become the world’s fate. Sorry.
And it is intentional.
That’s just the point.
There is no reason for you and I or anyone else who is part of western civilization to preserve the environment for benefit the coming era of humanity enslaved.
I agree that it is deplorable that developing countries ignore the environment as industry develops.
But the US government basically prohibiting trade with those countries in the name of environmental sensitivity is not a good option for the poor people of those countries.
bfl
Children have small hands which makes it easier to grab the small parts.....
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