Toxic Sweatshops Exposed by Whistle-Blower

Austin Chronicle

Daniel Mottola

Original article here

Picture a stream of refuse, comprised of countless obsolete computers and electronic devices. That stream is what we frequently refer to these days as e-waste.

When e-waste is landfilled or incinerated, a host of toxic chemicals, including carcinogenic heavy metals, can be released into the ground, air, and water. A lucrative recycling industry has developed around harvesting valuable and reusable components from outdated electronics, but the problem of e-waste being processed by unprotected workers in unsafe conditions continues as so-called e-recyclers profit by selling components to developing countries (including China, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria, among others) with lax or absent environmental laws, rather than responsibly handling it here. But would you believe similarly unsafe e-recycling is happening throughout the U.S., using captive laborers, all within the purview of the federal government?

Last month, as 500 members of the nation’s electronics recycling industry gathered in Austin for the annual e-scrap conference, a coalition of public interest and environmental groups – including Austin-based Texas Campaign for the Environment – released the report “Toxic Sweatshops, How UNICOR Prison Recycling Harms Workers, Communities, the Environment, and the Recycling Industry.” Delivering the most incisive look yet at UNICOR, aka Federal Prison Industries – a $765 million-per-year company operated under the U.S. Department of Justice that has employed prisoners in various labor tasks since 1934 – the report details how inmates are paid $0.23-$1.15 per hour to smash computer monitor glass, allegedly with inadequate tools and safety equipment, to access salvageable copper coils, releasing clouds of toxin-laced dust over workers and guards in the process. UNICOR claims that its workers have access to a range of safety equipment and that air quality is periodically tested.

The report contains the accounts of corrections Officer Leroy Smith, a former safety manager in UNICOR’s operation in Atwater, Calif., who became a federal whistle-blower in 2004, documenting the dangerous extent of the recycling operations and decrying efforts to cover them up.

“Daily, I receive calls from my colleagues working in computer recycling operations at other correctional institutions who describe coming home coated in dust. They had been told that there was no danger. Now, many have health problems, and others are scared about what lies in store for them,” said Smith, who spoke at the E-Scrap conference. The one air-quality test performed at his facility in 2003, he said, showed three times the permissible levels of heavy metals, including lead, cadmium, barium, and beryllium, adding that prisoners were often lacerated by broken glass, that food was served in contaminated work areas, and that conditions were intentionally cleaned up immediately before safety inspections. He faulted the Justice Department, the Bureau of Prisons (who investigated and largely dismissed the allegations), and even the U.S. Office of Special Council, who gave him the 2006 Public Servant of the Year award for his whistle-blowing. And he claimed no one has adequately addressed the long-term medical effects of the toxic exposure or taken steps to demand reforms from UNICOR, which operates six prison operations similar to his – including one in Texarkana – four of which have never been investigated.

At the forefront of the e-waste reform movement is the Computer TakeBack Campaign, whose work since 2002 led Austin’s Dell computers to abandon its use of UNICOR and to transform into an e-recycling leader. In addition to targeting safety and environmental hazards at UNICOR, TakeBack is opposed to the undercutting effect its ultralow wages have on the private e-waste industry. “Economically, it sucks for someone in this business trying to do the right thing, said Ted Smith, who founded Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in 1982, the predecessor to the Computer TakeBack Campaign. In 2003 TakeBack joined with the Basel Action Network, a global e-waste reform group, to create the Recyclers Pledge of True Stewardship, whose signatories promise to track their toxic e-waste to avoid its destination in prisons, landfills, and especially in developing nations where it’s often processed in dangerous and environmentally devastating ways, as shockingly depicted in BAN’s 2002 film Exporting Harm. Now, the two groups are working to transform the pledge into a third-party-audited certification for e-recyclers, which Smith says companies can use to advertise that they’re doing the right thing and “drive the sham recyclers out of business.”

None of the roughly 10 e-waste handlers operating in Austin have taken the pledge, despite its prominence in industry publications since 2003, according to Texas Campaign for the Environment director Robin Schneider. “But all you need to call yourself an e-recycler is a truck,” she added. And she noted that Goodwill Industries, who accepts discarded electronics at its Austin locations, ships e-waste to Dallas-based recycler Intechra Inc., who has signed the pledge.

TCE is joining Computer TakeBack to urge U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to rein in UNICOR. They’re also calling on the Texas Legislature to pass e-waste measures in the upcoming session and are about to open a dialogue with the city of Austin in hopes they’ll join markedly less progressive neighbors Kyle and Georgetown in passing a resolution in favor of state and federal producer take-back e-waste laws. For more info, see www.texasenvironment.org or www.computertakeback.com.


Landfills: A concern piling up

CLEAN Living

Geoffrey Castro

Original article here

With just over four million residents living in the Houston –Galveston Area Council’s (H-GAC) region, garbage is piling up although most of it is kept out of sight. The region is expected to grow by as much as 40 percent over the next twenty years creating a concern about disposing of the trash, paper and yard waste all those people will add to already bulging landfills.

Americans generate trash at an alarming rate— almost twice that of other countries. In Houston residents throw away 8.2 pounds of garbage everyday, twice the national average.

Within the H-GAC region as much as 4.5 million tons of solid waste is produced each year. According to a report by H-GAC, an estimated 60 percent of the waste stream is composed of paper, cardboard, aluminum and yard waste such as grass clippings, leaves and other litter from lawns and gardens. Residential collection accounts for an estimated 58 percent of the region’s waste whereby the rest is generated from business and other activities. Of this waste, roughly 90 percent ends up in landfills.

Currently there are 2,300 acres allocated for landfill space for this region – a capacity that Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) reports will fill up within 20 years. Estimates of capacity are constantly changing as new permits are accepted or denied making it difficult to obtain an approximate number for years of remaining landfill capacity.

Trends over the past 30 years have given way to building fewer and larger landfills in response to federal legislation that regulate landfills. As a result, many smaller city and county dumps have closed and giant mountains of trash are emerging. This has caused TCEQ to become lambasted by environmental groups crying a dramatic increase in problems such as water contamination, noxious gases, erosion and terrible odors.

“We have a very poor way of planning for landfill capacity in Texas,” says Robin Schneider, director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, a group working to strengthen and enforce trash rules across the state. Schneider, who has been focusing on landfill regulations around the state since 2001, feels that Houston and much of the state are behind in adequately addressing source reduction.

Zac Trahan, a campaign organizer for the organization, says that there is a general lack of education about landfilling because there are so few of them. “They have been reduced in number and centralized into regional landfills where most people don’t see the consequences of big mountains of trash on a day to day basis.” He says most people put their garbage out once or twice a week, it gets picked up and they never think about it again. “There is no such thing as ‘away’,” he adds.

Although it appears cheap and easy to operate landfills, an EPA study shows that almost all landfills eventually end up leaking into the ground adversely affecting water sources.

Currently, there is no system for containing this waste. Some states require a double liner for leak protection, but Texas has yet to follow suit. Although landfills in Texas have groundwater monitoring, proximity of ground monitors have been widely debated. TCEQ’s current standard requires monitors to be at least 600 feet apart. Schneider says this standard does not adequately protect public health. She argues that plumes extending from leakages might be very narrow and that they may go undetected.

Schneider says product manufacturers and local governments have the largest role to play in change. Crockett Texas, for example, has perhaps made the biggest stride for other cities to follow by passing a law which mandates recycling. The city currently recycles 50 percent of is waste, more than any other city in Texas. Other cities such as Austin, have signed on to the Urban Environmental Accord, a plan to have zero waste by 2040.

Houston ranked among the lowest in recycling rates in a survey earlier this year. Waste Stage, an industry publication, compared recycling rates for the 30 largest cities in the U.S. and found that Houston recycles 2.5 percent of its waste compared to other cities such as San Francisco which recycles 67 percent of its waste.

The low recycling rates throughout the region and the state are often attributed to the cost structure of landfills. “Because landfilling is so cheap, the costs of recycling don’t often match up,” says Schneider.

Progress & Solutions:

In response to low recycling rates, Mayor White recently unveiled “Go Green,” the city’s new recycling awareness program. “Recycling is the environmentally right thing to do. It saves landfill space, saves tax payer dollars, and helps conserve natural resources,” says Mayor White.

The H-GAC is also working with local municipalities and providing solid waste stream analysis as well as assistance to increase recycling efforts through its Solid Waste Implementation grant program. The program distributes 3.5 million dollars each year for funding the purchase of recycling equipment and facilities including the City of Houston’s Westpark Recycling Center. Each month, the center serves more than 6,000 Houston residents who are not served by curbside recycling to collect an array of goods including computers, newspaper, used oil, tires and much more. According to an H-GAC spokes person, grant money also funds local enforcement of illegal dumping and anti-litter.

What we can do:

Groups like Schneider’s, Texas Campaign for the Environment, are committed to zero waste as a long term goal. This will take a comprehensive change in many areas that includes not only landfills and recycling but design, consumption, packaging and waste. Long term solutions must be aimed at making products easier to recycle and making producers and manufacturers responsible for the end of life of their products.

Ultimately, reducing waste begins at the source – the people who create the trash. To reduce your contribution to the growing landfills try:

  • Reducing—use less energy, water, materials, and toxic products.
  • Reusing—use items again and again, until they cannot be used anymore.
  • Recycling—make new products or packaging from used materials.
  • Rebuying—consume products made from recycled materials.

The steps are easy. For more tips on simplifying your lifestyle and minimizing your personal waste stream click here . Source reduction programs are paramount and will ultimately depend on an informed public. Citizens just like you need to plug into more recycling efforts and become more educated about the long-term consequences of landfills and the benefits of recycling. If citizens have curbside recycling programs they need to maximize their participation. If not, they need to demand better recycling options and take advantage of drop off points.

The mountain of trash and debris is rising. Houston can still support this type of policy and legislation on producer takeback, minimize its waste and save taxpayers money. How will you make a difference?


Tech Trash Talk Recyclers will discuss future of electronics scrap industry at Austin conference this week

Austin American Statesman
Dan Zehr

The tractor-trailers started showing up 18 times a day, and they didn’t stop for a month. Each one backed up to the dock at Image Microsystems Inc. in North Austin with another haul of old electronics equipment. By the time the final truck pulled away, workers had unloaded 93,000 phones, computers and monitors. The caravan cleared out a massive warehouse where the New York Department of Education had stored the equipment for years, trying to figure out what to do with it all.

“If you take someone as educated as a department of education, you’d think they’d know,” said Jim Rollins, an executive vice president at Image.

But that lack of awareness is the problem dogging the electronics-recycling industry and one of the key issues recyclers, product manufacturers and environmentalists will take up at the annual E-Scrap Conference, which starts Wednesday at the Austin Hilton. Organizers say more than 600 people from 10 countries have signed up for the event.

“That’s what this conference is all about,” Rollins said, “educating people about what do to with that product and where to go with it.”

Spreading the word is easier than it was in 2002, when fewer than 400 people gathered in Orlando, Fla., for the first conference. Back then, the electronics-recycling industry was a scattershot collection of small companies. Today, it’s a billion-dollar market, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We used to talk about why to do this business,” said Jerry Powell, editor in chief of E-Scrap News, which runs the conference. “Now, we talk about how to do this business.”

It’s a business that has grown easier in some ways and harder in others. A few high-profile protests, some forward-thinking companies and slowly increasing awareness have directed thousands of tons of electronics toward recyclers instead of landfills over the past five years.

147-4732_IMGThe Texas Campaign for the Environment led a two-year campaign against Dell Inc., including a well-publicized 2003 incident in which members dressed in prison uniforms to protest the use of prison labor in the company’s recycling programs. The group’s two-year campaign and a growing number of recycling requests from customers persuaded Dell to change its policies.

Now the company is considered one of the leading computer makers when it comes to recycling and other environmental issues. It offers free recycling for any Dell product, whether the owner buys something from the company or not. Hewlett-Packard Co. also has extended recycling and take-back programs worldwide.

“When we started in 2002, H-P was really the only company that had this on their radar screen,” said Robin Schneider, the Texas Campaign’s executive director. “Now they all do. . . . There is much more cooperation than there has been in the past.”

That has led to a rush of new recyclers in Austin and around the country, Schneider said. Companies are popping up to grab a piece of the market, which had doubled to $1.5 billion in 2005 from three years earlier, according to EPA estimates.

“People recognize they have valuable stuff there; it’s not just a tin can or a glass bottle,” said Powell, the E-Scrap organizer. “But when you open the collection programs, the question they have is how, when and where.”

Most recycling firms do business solely with equipment makers or large customers and typically don’t market their services to consumers. So, most home users end up piling their old equipment in a closet or furtively tossing it in the trash.

“Five years from now,” Powell said, “everyone will know all Austin Goodwills take used computers.”

But new recyclers could have a tough time even if awareness grows to a point where everyone turns in their old electronics equipment, experts say. Despite the industry’s growth, they say, there will be less and less money to make on recycling and refurbishing old machines as manufacturers improve products and make them more environmentally sound.

Meanwhile, manufacturers such as Dell and H-P, both leading sponsors of the E-Scrap Conference, keep raising their standards. They have to guarantee customers that sensitive data will be destroyed and the equipment will be disposed of properly. And given that their customers reside across the country and world, the manufacturers increasingly prefer recyclers who have a broad presence.

“We need the support of a large network of participants to be successful,” said Tod Arbogast, who helps direct Dell’s environmental efforts. “We need them to drive efficiencies in the processes of recycling.”

That almost certainly means consolidation is on the way. Among the people registered for E-Scrap, organizers said, the most intriguing were the investment bankers.

“They’re seeing if there’s a play here,” Powell said.

The interest from outside sources of capital isn’t new. In August, Austin-based recycler Newmarket IT received $50 million from Catterton Partners, a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Conn.

“Consolidation and mergers are occurring in this business,” Powell said. “Some of the people coming to Austin are seeing it a bit as a dating bureau. They’re coming to the dance to be seen.”

The consolidation will help drive more volume, which in turn will help recyclers squeeze more return out of their scrap lines. But no matter how efficient they become, said Rollins, of Image Micro, “it’s a very hard thing to make true business sense out of. . . . You have to have other offerings to make up for recycling.”

Image Micro refurbishes some machines and re-sells them. Goodwill also re-sells refurbished computers as part of its partnership with Dell. The venture now offers free recycling at Goodwill sites in Austin, San Antonio, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and all of Michigan.

Unlike Goodwill, though, Image Micro is in the business to make money, so it has developed a range of products and services to supplement its recycling business. For example, it has installed presses that allow it to make garbage can wheels and rain gauge covers out of the plastics it recovers.

“The economic benefit is not from recycling electronic products,” said Hong-Chao Zhang, director of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing at Texas Tech University. “It comes from other businesses that accompany recycling.”

And although the rising participation in electronics recycling programs means more computers, cell phones and digital music players for companies to recycle, Zhang said, recyclers will have to diversify if they’re to survive.

“They hope someday this industry could become a major industry,” Zhang said.

“A couple years ago, I’d have believed that. . . . But without legislative support, I think this industry will still be struggling. There’s not much money in end-of-life products.”


Take ’em back, officials say

Plano Star Courier

Cory J. Mageors

 

The age-old debate about computers taking over the world might not be as far fetched as most would think. Machines don’t necessarily have to be functioning robots to make an impact on the daily lives of Texans.

Monday night at the Plano City Council meeting, the Texas Campaign for the Environment brought nearly 1,200 handwritten letters to the council showing support from city residents who have joined a grassroots effort to force computer companies to take back and recycle outdated computers.

“The people of this community spent their hard-earned time writing these letters in support of our cause,” said Jessica Metcalf, a canvasser for the TCE.

The TCE went from door to door asking the community for support. From the buzz in the room by city officials like Mayor Pat Evans and Mayor Pro Tem Scott Johnson, the effort paid off.

“How can anyone say no to this?” Evans said.

As technology advances and consumers continue to buy new computers to replace outdated systems, dumpsites are filling up with heavy metals.

Currently there is no standard effective process of recycling computers. Many components are not necessarily built to be stripped down and salvaged.

However, TCE is working with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and the Electronics Retailers Coalition to do everything they can to get the federal, state and local officials to understand the necessity for a planned process.

With no system in place, the effect has been illegal dumping of the electronic waste all over the world. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, some waste that was used by the University of Texas, a school district in Irving and the Texas Department of Human Services was found in an illegal dump in Missouri. Also, China, Nigeria, India and other countries have found illegal dumps shipped from United States recyclers. Until Monday, only Georgetown had adopted the resolution for TCE to go to the state with the shared concern. Plano officially voted to approve the resolution Monday and became the second party involved.

By approving the resolution, Plano gave the TCE yet another city that is backing their cause. The TCE is hoping to gain more exposure and the capability go to the state government with many backers, that will signify the magnitude of this cause.

“We wanted to simply thank the council for basically bringing the resolution up,” said DFW Program Director for the TCE Robert Andrews. “We had to fight with other councils just to get it on the agenda. They think that it is anti-business, but it really is not.”

The cause is actually more cost-effective for businesses, he noted. If consumers are able to take back computers to vendors such as Dell and HP, then those businesses don’t have to spend as much on materials. The possibility of expanding and opening new departments, maybe even plants with the sole purpose of recycling computer products also adds value to their business.

“It is about environmental purity, but it’s also about pure economics,” said council member Shep Stahel. “We recycle the materials that are in there and put it right back into the stream to build new products. It’s real simple.”

The TCE will be asking the Transportation and Environmental Committee of Dallas on Sept. 25 to put the resolution on their agenda. Other cities like Ft. Worth and Houston are also in the sight of the TCE.

But the fact that Plano accepted and supported the TCE resolution, showed a true commitment to environmental causes.

“Their record has shown that they are a very progressive and forward thinking council,” said Andrews. “I must commend their environmental staff and the council members for the work they put into getting this on the agenda.”

As more cities understand the concept of recycling computers for the sake of the environment and business economics, less waste will fill Texas dumpsites. And ultimately leave everybody in a win-win situation.


Dell launches first free recycling program

dell_shareholders1Austin American-Statesman
Dan Zehr

Dell Inc. wants its old computers back, and it will pick them up for free. The company said Wednesday that it will provide free recycling for all its products worldwide, the first computer maker to offer such broad recovery services at no charge.

It previously offered free recovery only with the purchase of new Dell products, as most of its competitors do now. In the past, Dell charged customers who weren’t buying new products $10 per package to pick up equipment at their homes.

“This announcement is a breakthrough because Dell is the first electronics company to offer individuals free recycling for all products the company has put on the market worldwide,” Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, wrote in an e-mail.

Schneider and the Texas Campaign have aggressively lobbied Dell and other tech companies to improve their environmental policies.

Most consumer electronics makers offer free recycling in Europe and some parts of the U.S., where free recovery services have been mandated. Dell said it will offer free recovery in all U.S. states by September and throughout the rest of the world by November.

Hewlett-Packard Co. and Apple Computer Inc. also recycle old computer systems. However, both companies charge a fee to recycle their own products unless consumers are purchasing new equipment from them. Lenovo Group Ltd. will recover old PCs for $30.

“This incremental step might be big for the industry, but it’s not all that big for Dell,” Chairman Michael Dell told reporters. “We have the infrastructure in place to make this happen.”

Tod Arbogast, who helps manage Dell’s environmental programs, said the campaign marked a greater commitment by Dell to the environment. And Michael Dell said the program also could help drive more sales to consumers, who are becoming more environmentally aware.

Dell users who want to recycle their products can go online and enter the serial number from their equipment. They can then print out shipping labels and schedule a pickup, which is handled by the companies that Dell uses to ship its products. Dell also employs other companies to recycle or refurbish its computers, but the contracts no longer allow equipment to be shipped out of the U.S.

The program is another step in the turnaround of Dell’s approach to recycling. Four years ago, activists were stuffing Michael Dell’s home mailbox with thousands of letters, each encouraging him to improve the company’s environmental programs. Since then, environmental groups said, Dell has led the computer industry with initiatives on recycling and reducing levels of toxic materials in its products.

“This signals to us a commitment on Dell’s part to say, ‘We’re responsible for our products’ impact on the environment,’ ” said Barbara Kyle, national coordinator of the Computer Takeback Campaign. “No one else is doing that on a global basis. “Now it’s a matter of how much they’ll promote it,” she said.

Consumers have been slow to recycle old computers, in large part because it’s more convenient to dump them than recycle them. Convenience can be more crucial than price, said John Frey, manager of H-P’s environmental initiatives. One consumer might want to protect sensitive data by destroying the hard drive, while another might want to save the hard drive so the computer can be donated to charity. Though Dell’s recovery program is free, destroying sensitive data is the consumer’s responsibility.

“We’ve found that offering variety and convenience has driven more recycling than any program that sounds like a great idea,” Frey said.

Last year, H-P recovered 140 million pounds of equipment, including printer cartridges and other tech products. Dell recovered 41 million pounds. And Apple, which only a month ago said it would start taking back its old equipment free with the purchase of new products, recovered 6.2 million pounds.

Dell has said it hopes to have recovered a total of 280 million pounds of equipment by 2009.

H-P, which has had recycling programs in place since 1987, has set a goal of 1 billion pounds by 2007. Earlier this week, H-P broadened its worldwide recovery programs and said it would hold recycling drives in seven U.S. states this year.


Georgetown takes on tech trash: City is first to vote on resolution urging new electronics recycling rules

computerrecycleAustin American-Statesman
Francisco Vara-Orta

Consumers aren’t the only ones frustrated about what to do with obsolete and broken electronic equipment such as televisions or computers. A surging international debate over electronic waste, or e-waste, has cities such as Georgetown plugging into residents’ concern over consumers and businesses tossing old equipment in the trash, possibly leading to contamination from the electronics’ internal toxic chemicals.

Last week, the Georgetown City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution calling for the Texas Legislature to require vendors and companies who provide electronic products to city and state governments to take the equipment back after it is discarded. Currently, each entity must figure out what to do with its obsolete electronics.

Georgetown became the first city in Texas to vote on an electronic waste resolution, but city officials said it’s more of a political statement that bears no legal consequences. The council acted after receiving about 200 letters and a petition with about 800 signatures in favor of the resolution.

“We’re trying to send the message to other city and state governments that e-waste is a fast-growing problem and the technology industry needs to be encouraged to make more environmentally sound products,” said Patty Eason, a Georgetown council member.

The effort is being led by the Texas Campaign for the Environment, an Austin-based advocacy group that is trying to line up similar resolutions in Plano and Dallas, with eyes on the 2007 Legislature.

Executive Director Robin Schneider said a recent study by her group found that Central Texas cities would spend an estimated $41 million through 2015 on electronic waste if there is no requirement for companies or vendors to handle the recycling.

“E-waste is the fastest-growing municipal waste stream in the United States,” Schneider said.

She praised Georgetown, saying the city “took a step in the right direction of what’s going to be a very long path to comprehensive national e-waste legislation.”

Eason said Georgetown’s resolution is part of a broader goal to get federal laws written to create a uniform policy for manufacturers to handle more electronic waste.

“Citizens and cities are having to deal with the problem, and it’s only going to get worse,” Eason said.

Southwestern University’s Laura Hobgood-Oster, who chairs the school’s environmental studies program, sent the council a letter supporting the resolution.

“It’s like we have some kind of cultural blind spot when it comes to the dangers of electronic waste,” Hobgood-Oster said. “Technology has been so fast-paced in the last century that I don’t think we’ve realized yet what we’re going to do with all that obsolete equipment.”

Approximately 62 percent of U.S. households had computers in 2003, compared with only 37 percent in 1997, according to a 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. About 70 million computers became obsolete in 2003, and only 7 million of those were recycled, according to a report by the National Safety Council, a nonprofit, nongovernmental public health advocacy agency.

When it comes time to get rid of old equipment, residents’ options are limited.

Federal rules allow only 220 pounds of hazardous waste each month in landfills, the equivalent of two or three TVs. Some companies, such as Dell Inc., do have programs to recycle outdated equipment. People can also sell obsolete items to for-profit businesses that recycle parts. Another option is to donate equipment to nonprofits or thrift stores.

Georgetown resident Leona Resteiner said she donates her outdated equipment to nonprofit groups, or, if the equipment is broken, waits for the city’s hazardous waste collection day in November.

Most large electronics such as computers and TVs are prohibited from regular trash pickups in Georgetown because of the federal dumping guidelines and the city’s current incapacity for recycling high volumes of e-waste. However, Georgetown’s revamped recycling facility, opening this year, will have a dropoff point for electronics.

“We should have more options; the ones available are too far and few in between,” Resteiner said. “I think that discourages proper disposal of e-waste, but this is an important issue that can affect the health of our children and grandchildren for generations.”


Overflowing with Landfills

landfill2Fort Worth Weekly
Jessica Johnson
Original article here

A Texas environmental group wants tougher laws on trash disposal sites.

In the hill country of Palo Pinto County, a subdivision of weekend homes sits on one side of Clayton Mountain. Over the ridge, 250 acres of grazing land feed the livestock of local ranchers.

Soon, however, that grassland may be replaced by mounds of household garbage and other kinds of trash, if Allied Waste, the second-largest waste disposal company in the country, has its way. And local citizens fear that, if Allied’s application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for a new landfill permit is approved, the new landfill could eventually cover as much as 1,100 acres, held by the same landowner.

Robert Rexroat, vice president of Citizens to Save Palo Pinto County, an organization formed to fight the landfill proposal, believes that his organization has “proof that any runoff from the location where they are siting the landfill will run into Palo Pinto Creek, which supplies 88 percent of the county’s drinking water.”

To the north, a plot in southeast Jack County is getting the eyeball from Fort Worth-based IESI, another major waste disposal company. The proposed site is 250 acres of cattle and horse ranchland in the west Cross Timbers landscape, just south of the historic community of Joplin. The site crosses Jasper Creek and sits atop a 1,000-foot-deep underground reservoir that supplies water needs for area ranchers.

“The proposed dump would also be on the Trinity River watershed, which flows into Lake Bridgeport and furnishes water to the city of Fort Worth. It’s in floodplain, and we think that this is just totally unacceptable,” said geologist James Henderson, a leader of a Jack County group formed to oppose that landfill.

“It’s the equivalent of about half of what those two hurricanes in Houston and Mobile created. … It’s really an unsuitable hydrological and geological site,” Henderson said.

The companies seeking those landfill permits say residents are worrying needlessly. “The landfill is designed [so that] it absolutely cannot be harmful to the environment,” said Allied district manager Jim Lattimore.

But fights like these are being repeated across Texas — fights in which local communities need a lot more help from the state, Robin Schneider said. She’s the executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, a statewide group that is trying to convince the state environmental agency to strengthen its controls over the permitting and operation of landfills — especially since landfills in Texas are growing both in number and size.

Texas has some of the weakest landfill standards in the nation, Schneider said. According to a report put together by her group, required buffer zones between landfills and facilities such as homes and public water supplies are less here than in most other states, landfill permits do not have to be renewed periodically, and existing landfills are allowed to expand their dumps both in acreage and in height to alarming proportions.

The proposed site in Jack County, for instance, is one of the highest elevations in the county, and the company plans to pile on 200 vertical feet of doubly compacted trash. Over the next 50 years, the area is designated to receive more than 50 million cubic yards of waste. Bob Kneis, area manager for IESI, said the Jack County landfill is being safely designed. “It’s not just digging a hole and putting trash in it anymore,” he said. “These are highly engineered sites.”

The environmental group is also worried about minimal requirements for the lining of landfills to prevent groundwater contamination. “Most people don’t think about their trash once they put it out on the curb, but the impact of the landfills is very grave,” Schneider said. Poorly run landfills, she said, not only can contribute to groundwater pollution but also emit mercury, methane, and other toxins.

Richard Carmichael, manager of solid waste permits for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said he disagrees with the environmental group’s conclusions about Texas landfill regulation.

“I’ve had staff research the rules in other states. I don’t think we are weaker,” he said. “You can pick out a particular citation from Texas and compare it to other states, and maybe you could say that that state is more stringent on that particular citation, but you could look at another part of our rules and find where we are consistently more stringent than other states.”

The debate was scheduled to go to TCEQ commissioners this week, but environmentalists said they expected the discussion to be put off for a month, at the request of Commissioner Larry Soward.

TCEQ staffers have proposed a series of changes in landfill regulations that the Texas Campaign for the Environment believes don’t go far enough — and in some cases, weaken rather than strengthening the state’s rules.

“The rules as proposed, I think, tighten up some areas,” Carmichael said. The changes recommended by the staff are “not everything the Texas Campaign for the Environment would like. It’s not what industry would like. Industry has a laundry list of complaints that we are being too stringent. On the other side, Texas Campaign says we’re not being stringent enough.”

Some staff proposals were changed “in response to comments,” Carmichael said. “One of our commissioners feels that some of those changes were substantial enough that we should go back and solicit comments again — that maybe we only got one side of the story. He wants to make sure we have a balanced input before we finalize these rules.”

Last month, the environmental group mailed commissioners thousands of letters gathered from citizens across the state, calling for stronger landfill regulations. “We have been able to come to people in neighborhoods and explain that these landfills are located very close to our water sources across the Metroplex,” said Fort Worth environmental activist Eleanor Whitmore.

There are 189 existing active municipal solid waste facilities in Texas, including 24 in Dallas and Tarrant counties alone. In less than 20 years, the average size of a landfill in Texas has nearly quadrupled, to almost 200 acres in 2004.

Leaders of the environmental campaign said their concerns are not just theoretical worries about the future. In Arlington, Whitmore pointed out, a now-closed section of a landfill just north of River Legacy Park is so near the Trinity that a few years ago erosion from Hurricane Creek, where it joins the river, cut into the site, spilling garbage into the river.

Last May, the city of Arlington contracted out operation of the landfill to the Republic Waste Services of Texas Ltd. Since then, there has been discussion of expanding the landfill into an area that the Texas Campaign for the Environment claims is unlined and situated in the Trinity’s 100-year floodplain.

Bob Weber, solid waste lease administrator for Arlington, said that the area in question is lined with clay, but not with the 60-millimeter-thick, pressure-tested plastic required since 1993 by federal law.

“In Arlington I am very comfortable with what we have” in terms of landfill operation, Weber said. TCEQ visually inspects the landfill each year and checks pollution monitors, he said. “For the eight years I’ve been there, we’ve had no violations charged against us.”

The Arlington site is not the only North Texas landfill within spitting distance of the Trinity. In Dallas, Irving, and Grand Prairie, landfills are located along the river, as well as at three sites near Lake Lewisville.

“All along the Trinity River in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are landfills and other trash facilities, oftentimes right on the banks of the Trinity River,” Schneider said, including the McCommas Bluff site in Dallas, “one of the largest landfills in the country.” Even though federal law requires landfills to be lined to help prevent water pollution from those dumps, she said, too many landfills — like the one in Arlington — were created before the law was passed in 1993 and are not required to meet that standard.

Schneider said her group also wants the state to strengthen regulations regarding how close to homes and water sources landfills can be and to put term limits on landfill permits.

Her group concluded that Texas’ required 50-foot buffer zone between landfills and homes, property lines, and public water supplies is one of the narrowest in the country. In this state, the report said, landfills can be closer to homes than feedlots, lead smelters, sludge application fields, and wastewater treatment plants are allowed to be. In 18 states, the required buffer zone is at least 300 feet from dwellings. And Mississippi requires that landfills be 1,000 feet away from homes and a half-mile to 10 miles from public water supplies.

The environmental group also argues that many potential problems could be dealt with if landfill permits had to be renewed every few years. As it is, Schneider said, Texas is one of only 12 states in which permits never expire. In effect, the permits are limited only by the space available on the site for more waste to be deposited. The Campaign for the Environment report concluded that more than half the active landfills in Texas have enough space to operate another 40 years, and that some could continue accepting trash and other waste for up to 100 years.

“The good news in Texas is that we have plenty of space for our trash. However, without term limits, our state cannot require the cleaner technologies that are available for our landfills in our future,” Whitmore said.