Computer recyclers – a scam

taboring — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:54:01 +0000

So called computer recyclers have been scamming the American business, educational, governmental and individual publics for years. The glut of unwanted and discarded electronics equipment (televisions, computers, monitors/other peripherals, printers, phones) is overwhelming and growing every year. Beleaguerd IT and maintenance departments had this problem dumped into their responsiblities starting early in this century, as it became known that such discards were potentially hazardous waste and questionable for disposal in US landfills.
Because there are little regulations in developing nations (India, China, Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam), a disgusting pollution engendering scrap industry developed. A CRT monitor, fresh from your donation to a charity but still unwanted, can be sold for several dollars, packaged into a 40′ seagoing container with 999 others, and exported to India. There, it is dumped anywhere accessible. Laborers, earning $2 a day if they are lucky, will dismantle it with crude hand tools. They will take the copper yoke and the low grade circuit board from it. The remainder will be left where it lays. That punctured tube contains 4-8 lbs of lead dust (from a coating that absorbs the heat while it was sitting on your desk). This dust will enter the local atmosphere and cause birth defects and respiratory illnesses. Some lead will seep into the ground as it rains, entering and ruining the water table. There is ample evidence of this all over the Web (see www.ban.org for example).
As this problem has been publicized, it has become a topic to discuss as decision makers, those who have to decide how to dispose of their unwanted scrap, try to weigh the options. Unethical compnies, willing to be vague, spin and outright lie, have convinced the great majority of decision makers that they are ‘recyclers’, that they do not export scrap to developing nations, that they do not landfill it, that they do not use US prison labor to process it. The scam has matured such that these charlatans will issue Certificates to these effects. Most decision makers are more conscious of the bottom line than spoiling to investigate the ‘recyclers’. So, if a company tells the decision maker a good tale, offers low cost or no cost solutions and issues a Certificate, that company earns the business over a legitimate recycler, who must pay to process the equipment in the US, thus driving up the costs. The legitimate recycler will word a proper Certificate to warrant that there was no export of landfilling PERIOD, and will list the serial numbers of the disposed equipment to clarify that the company did indeed handle certain equipment properly, if somewhat more costly.
Recent exposes have publicized the polluters; one on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a situation in Pittsburgh PA concerning an identified scammer, EarthECycle, documented the scam where the polluters brazenly tell a customer a sales pitch, promising not to export or landfill, then violate that agreement at will. The legitimate recycler, had no chance to get the contract, because he had real costs to incorporate into the sale price.
After a long period of these scenarios playing out, more and more decision makers were demanding rigorous documentation and legitmate recyclers, particularly those called ‘e stewards’, affiliated with the Basel Action Network, were in place to legitimately earn the business of these coscientious decision makers. To that end, BAN e stewards began the organization of a rigorous certification process to establish their legitimacy even further. Thsi process is being developed and will bear fruit in the next 6 months.
Faced with the loss of billions of dollars in potential profits, the group of companies that has long depended on shady, unverified procedures, struck back. They organized. They formed a new organization, an outgrowth of several older organizations, entitled the “World Reuse, Repair and Recycle Association” or “WR3A” for short. In the not so old days, one of the scammers precepts that melded nicely into the ‘sales pitch’ was the use of a reference to the ‘reuse’ component of recycling. Any legitimate recycler agrees that reuse is the most desirable way to recyucle. It reduces costs as the equipment is less expensive and thus available to lower income potential users. It removes the need to use new materials. When donated to non profit agencies, there can be positive tax advantages. Reuse is great!
The polluters have woven reuse into the sales pitch, with a touch of charity often the glue. There is a woman in the e waste disposal industry who has for years solicited the equipment from corporations by telling them that it was going to be used in a far eastern nation to train orphans as technicians, and teach them to refurb CRT monitors for resale. Sounds great!
But, the sad truth is that there is such a glut of CRTs that there is no market for them in any real quantity anywhere in the world, even if they still work and need no repair. It is safe to say that they can usually NOT even be given away in any quantity. So, if a company takes them from a client, either for free or a little charge, how can they process them? Who would pay to ship them to the Far East? How about testing them, storing them, arranging for their distribution IF there was an outlet? And, what about the CRTs that do not work? In India, who will verifiably contract to keep them out of the waste stream? (By the way, this problem includes other electronic discards like computers themselves, CRTs are the best example)
Nevertheless, this new organization WR3A, will attempt to create the appearance of legitimacy with a logo, websites, public relations media. Those of us who know better must work to educate the consuming public to the facts that this is simply an attempt at ‘business as usual’, taking US waste, prolonging the squeezing of a profit from it under the ‘reuse’ battle cry that will continue to result in despicable pollution. Beleaguered decision makers will have WR3A literature to stick in the file to play CYA. However, the result will be the same as it has been. Those of us e stewards who have elected to attempt a business model that does not damage the environment will continue to attempt to educate the public

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Computer recyclers – a scam