Organizations Call on Dollar Stores to Protect Communities of Color and Low-Income Families

Written by

dldscover1NorthDallasGazette.com
Original article here

On Wednesday, Feb. 4, over 100 health, community, and environmental justice organizations around the country will be coming together as the “Campaign for Healthier Solutions” to release a new report about toxic chemicals found in products sold at Dollar stores. Release of the report – A Day Late and a Dollar Short – coincides with the launch of a national campaign calling on Dollar store chains to stop the sale of products with hazardous chemicals to communities of color and low-income families, who already live in more polluted areas and “food deserts;” and to adopt business practices that keep both customers and their businesses safe.

The four largest Dollar store chains — including Family Dollar (tentatively acquired by Dollar Tree on January 22), Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and 99-Cents Only — combined have sales totaling over $36 billion and operate more stores nationally than Walmart. Dollar stores are often the only store selling essential household goods, including food, in many rural towns and urban neighborhoods, leaving many customers with no other option. The new report found that the vast majority of Dollar store products tested contained toxic chemicals linked to learning disabilities, cancer, diabetes and other serious illnesses.

There is a growing movement by mainstream retail and manufacturing brands – including Target and Walmart – to respond to consumer demand for safer productswith publicly-available corporate policies that identify, disclose, and replace priority toxic chemicals in broad categories of the products they sell. By failing to address toxic chemicals through comprehensive policies, Dollar chains are not only putting their customers at risk, they are exposing their businesses to the fate of companies like Mattel, which lost 18% of its value after recalling toys with lead paint, and Sigg USA, which went bankrupt after failing to disclose toxic BPA in its water bottles.

Doctors’ groups press EPA for much stricter federal ozone limit

Written by

ozonehearing_DMNDallas Morning News
Randy Lee Loftis

ARLINGTON — The top doctors’ organizations in Texas and Dallas County, along with other groups and individuals, pressed hard on Thursday for a much tougher federal limit on ozone, or smog. They told Environmental Protection Agency officials at an all-day hearing that Texas needs federal action on clean air because the state hasn’t acted.

A senior Texas official defended the state’s record and told the EPA that a proposed smog crackdown isn’t needed. Representatives of coal mining, natural gas, petroleum, manufacturing and chemicals echoed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s assessment.

However, Dr. Robert Haley of Dallas, an internist and epidemiologist, attacked their contention that health isn’t at stake in where the EPA sets a new standard for ozone.

Haley spoke for the Dallas County Medical Society and the Texas Medical Association, which he said “strongly endorse” toughening the federal ozone standard from its current 75 parts per billion down to 60 ppb. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has proposed a range of 65-70 ppb but is taking comments on the possibility of 60 ppb.

Dallas-Fort Worth’s average level for 2011-14 was 81 ppb.

Haley said a new study used a computer model to see what effect a 10-ppb reduction would have had in 2008 for 10 North Texas counties, including Dallas and Tarrant. Experts found that cleaner air would have meant 320 fewer hospitalizations, $10 million less in hospitalization costs, 77 fewer premature deaths and $617 million less in economic losses tied to those deaths.

“As physicians who care for those patients and see the asthma attacks, respiratory failure, hospitalizations and premature deaths, we believe that the citizens of these 10 counties are paying a high price for ozone pollution that could potentially be avoided,” Haley said.

David Brymer, the TCEQ’s air quality director, told EPA officials that the state agency found little or no evidence of health harm. The existing standard already protects the public and a tighter one would not prevent breathing problems or other ills, he said.

“We all share the common goal” of clean air, Brymer said.

Industries agreed with the TCEQ, which regulates their emissions. They also said a lower ozone limit would kill jobs.

Austin lawyer Christina Wisdom, speaking for the Texas Association of Manufacturers, said a stricter standard would not be in the nation’s best interest and would “decimate” Texas jobs just to make a “feel-good” change.

Texas Chemical Council President Hector Rivero, whose group represents chemical manufacturers, said science doesn’t support a tighter standard. He also repeated a frequent assertion of opponents — that changing the standard before all violator cities have met the current standard is “moving the goal line.”

But Frank O’Donnell, president of the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Clean Air Watch, asked where someone with a breathing problem would go for diagnosis and treatment — “to a doctor or to an oil-company lobbyist?”

Environmentalists said only federal pressure has led to clean-air progress in Texas. “I have no doubt that it would be much worse” without it, said Christine Guldi of Dallas.

Susybelle Gosslee of the League of Women Voters of Dallas told the EPA that Texas hasn’t made an honest attempt to clean the air. Zac Trahan, D/FW program director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, said the TCEQ’s disbelief in ozone’s health harm had led the state agency to adopt a goal of “close enough.”

And Jim Schermbeck, director of the North Texas clean-air group Downwinders at Risk, said the public was relying on the EPA instead of state officials.

“Only strong federal action can salvage the situation and give Texans safe, legal air to breathe,” he said.

Trahan: To rule out oil and gas activity as earthquake cause is not credible

Written by

frackquakeDallas Morning News Op-Ed
Zac Trahan, Texas Campaign for the Environment

I’m sitting at my desk in my office across from Lee Park in Dallas when the entire building begins to sway back and forth as if a real-life giant were shaking it to see what would fall down. Instant recognition: I had just experienced my first earthquake. Then a few hours later, at home relaxing on the couch, another earthquake rattles our apartment. Yikes.

That night I asked myself, how long will it be until someone attempts to officially declare that the quakes are completely unrelated to fracking?

The answer was nine days. At a Jan. 15 Irving City Council meeting, the Texas Railroad Commission’s Craig Pearson testified, “The evidence points to no involvement of oil and gas activities.” That same day, his Op-Ed in The Dallas Morning News self-assuredly proclaimed that, while we don’t know what’s behind these earthquakes, he knows that his industry isn’t to blame? Sorry, that simply isn’t credible.

Introductions may be appropriate. The Texas Railroad Commission is the state agency in charge of overseeing oil and gas operations in Texas, including fracking and related activities. The Railroad Commission currently functions as a “captured” agency, or one that is controlled by the industry it is supposed to regulate. Think “serve and protect.”

Consider this: The Texas Railroad Commission has always denied that oil and gas activities, including fracking and its associated wastewater injection wells, have ever caused earthquakes. That’s just the opposite of what actual scientists have been saying for over 50 years. Geologists have known since the 1960s that hazardous waste injection wells can and do cause earthquakes, and recent scientific research has shown that fracking itself can cause tremors as well. This is why the Southern Methodist University seismologists who attended the Irving meeting indicated that oil and gas activities are indeed one possible explanation of what’s behind our recent swarm of quakes.

The industry lapdog state agency has declared that gas drilling activities can’t possibly be behind this because there are no active fracking sites or wastewater injection wells nearby. But again, scientific research tells a more complicated story. As it turns out, scientists now say that both fracking and wastewater injection wells can cause seismic activity miles away from surface locations and years after original operations.

Let that sink in for a minute. All those fracking fluids that get injected underground at high volumes and pressures can migrate over time and cause future consequences, not just immediate effects. We don’t need a smoking-gun-style active injection well right in the middle of the earthquake epicenters to suspect that past oil and gas activities could be to blame.

Scientists have not claimed to know for certain that fracking activities are behind these current earthquakes. That being said, it’s unscientific, unrealistic, irresponsible, misleading and frankly ridiculous for state officials to say they somehow already know that oil and gas activities are not to blame.

For anyone interested in the truth as we move forward, I suggest that you ignore the Railroad Commission and instead pay close attention to the research being done at SMU and the U.S. Geological Survey with regard to human-induced earthquakes in North Texas. And you might want to get yourself some good insurance, just in case.

One more thing. A number of area cities, including Dallas and Fort Worth, have passed local ordinances to keep fracking wastewater injection wells outside of their city limits, in part to protect their residents from potential earthquakes.

Predictably, industry lobbyists are asking state legislators to pass new laws to override such ordinances and strip away our right to local control. Now is a good time to contact your state senator and state representative and explain that local control is not up for negotiation. If you don’t already know who represents you at the state Capitol, find out at www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us. Don’t get rattled. Get organized.

Zac Trahan is D/FW program director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment.

Governor-elect Abbott wants to end local ban on plastic bags

Written by

Fox 7 News Austin
Elizabeth Saab
Original story here

Governor-elect Greg Abbott won’t be sworn in for another week and a half but already he’s proposing sweeping changes to the way local government passes laws. Some of them could take effect right here in Austin.

Thursday Governor-elect Abbott delivered what some people are calling his first major policy speech. In it he highlighted the need to preserve quote freedom and property lines even if that includes overturning laws passed here at the local level.

It’s a sign of the times, Texas is ushering in its first new governor in fourteen years and he’s drawing his first line in the sand that could pit local and state governments against each other.

“His concern was of Texas becoming like California through a piecemeal process of local over regulation,” said Vice President of Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation Chuck Devore.

Abbott gave his speech to the foundation. He says by bringing it back to the state level taxpayers will get their power back.

“It’s about liberty. If you lose your liberty it matters not if you lose it to the federal government or the state government or to the local government liberty lost is liberty lost,” he said.

“The real Californication here is when we have statewide officials telling local governments how they should be treating their problems,” said Andrew Dobbs, the Central Texas Program Director for the Texas Campaign for the Environment.

Dobbs says the campaign fought to get the plastic and paper bag ban passed in Austin two years ago. He says it’s had a huge impact on reducing litter in the city. While he admits it’s not a comprehensive approach, he says it’s an effective one.

The Texas Retailers Association had filed a suit against the bag ban but that’s been dropped.

“We supported Abbott when he was attorney general, when he issued an opinion that there’s an existing state statute which holds that local governments are prohibited from enacting these kinds of ordinances. We support that position and we are encouraged to hear Abbott speak out on that today,” said Ronnie Volkening, the President of the Texas Retailers Association.

Only time will tell if local government will still get to decide how they’ll handle it. That clock starts ticking next week when the legislature goes back into session.

Suit seeks EPA decision on oil field chemical disclosure

Written by

Houston Chronicle
Matthew Tresaugue

Environmentalists filed a lawsuit Wednesday to force federal regulators to decide whether they should require companies to disclose the toxic chemicals released during oil exploration and production. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, marks the latest attempt by environmentalists to make information public on pollution from oil and gas drilling amid a rush to sink more wells into Texas, North Dakota and other parts of the country.

Federal rules require chemical makers, power producers and oil refiners, among others, to disclose pollutants they release into the air, water and soil to an inventory run by the Environmental Protection Agency. But companies that extract oil and gas are generally exempt from the reporting rules.

Environmental groups petitioned the EPA in 2012 to add oil and gas activities to the decades-old federal inventory, but the agency has yet to act. The lawsuit, citing an unreasonable delay by regulators, asks the court to force the agency to make a decision, either accepting or rejecting the petition.

“This is the last major sector that has not been included in the inventory,” said the lead attorney in the suit, Adam Korn of the Environmental Integrity Project. “We’re just saying to the EPA, look again. The industry is different now.”

The EPA declined comment on the lawsuit.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main trade group, has told the agency that the reporting requirement would create an excessive administrative burden while providing negligible benefit. The rule would cover a small number of facilities, which are mostly found in rural and remote areas, that emit enough pollutants to cross the reporting threshold of 10,000 pounds for any one chemical, the group said.

The federal inventory began in 1986 after a gas leak at a Union Carbide plant killed thousands in Bhopal, India. The law requires a wide variety of industries to report their releases of toxic chemicals each year, but the requirement doesn’t cover oil and gas development. The EPA considered adding that sector in the 1990s but didn’t.

The environmental groups say the industry should be in the database because of the oil and gas production boom related to advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, a well completion process that involves pumping large amounts of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to release oil and natural gas locked in shale rock.

The Environmental Integrity Project last year said it found that nearly 400 compressor stations, processing facilities and other oil and gas sites had released enough chemicals into the air to exceed the reporting threshold for the federal inventory. The group’s analysis covered six states, including Texas.
Korn said the group provided the information to the EPA, but it didn’t act, prompting the lawsuit. Such delays have led to other suits, typically filed by environmental groups seeking to drive policy. The disputes often end with a legally binding agreement on a timetable.

Zac Trahan, statewide program director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, one of the nine plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the public has a right to know about the pollution from oil and gas extraction, just like other industries.

“If oil and gas drilling and extraction is as safe as industry lobbyists say it is,” he said, “they should be able to follow the same rules every other industry already does.”

Port Aransas bans single-use plastic bags

Written by

byobCorpus Christi Caller-Times
David Sikes

CORPUS CHRISTI – The Port Aransas City Council voted this week to ban the use of plastic bags at most retail stores within the island community.

The council also urged shops to voluntarily stop providing the thin plastic bags to customers beginning Jan. 1, 2015. The outright ban goes into effect Jan. 1, 2016. Vendors who sell fishing bait, seafood and other raw foods may continue using the single-use bags indefinitely, said City Manager Dave Parsons.

The vote was 5-1, with local restaurant owner Edwin Myers casting the dissenting vote.

The ban puts Port Aransas on a growing list of Texas cities that have adopted some form of plastic bag restriction. The list of at least 10 cities includes Austin, Dallas, Freer, Brownsville, Laredo and South Padre Island. In addition, two states and 20 countries have regulated the single-use bags to curb littering, according to Neil McQueen, president of the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which campaigns for bag bans through its Skip the Plastic program.

City leaders in Rockport, Corpus Christi and other area communities have entertained similar ordinances that would curb the use of plastic bags.

“We plan to continue advocating bans in Rockport, Corpus Christi and other surrounding communities so we have a more comprehensive and effective ban to help protect the entire Coastal Bend,” McQueen said. “We’ve seen an increase of people using reusable bags, but unfortunately its not enough. It’s encouraging, but not enough.”

McQueen said curbing the use of the ubiquitous, lightweight bags that litter the landscape goes beyond aesthetics. Wildlife, especially birds and marine animals such as sea turtles, suffer as well. He said Tony Amos, a renowned researcher at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute and founder of the Animal Rehabilitation Keep for injured animals, made this assertion during several public meetings leading up to Thursday’s vote.

McQueen said Amos again addressed the council at Thursday’s meeting, which attracted a near capacity crowd. In a compelling argument, McQueen said Amos described details of injured or dead birds and marine animals that either consumed the plastic or became entangled in the discarded bags left on the beach, in the dunes and in the bays and gulf.

A total of eight people addressed the bag issue during the meeting. Six favored the ban, Parsons said. The council considered allowing bags made of material that would break down in a composting process. But this clause was removed from the final draft. McQueen said the council was not convinced the compostable material would degrade underwater or over time in the dunes.

Dallas Apartments and Hotels are Terrible at Recycling

Written by

reducereuserecycleflickrkevindooleyDallas Observer
Eric Nicholson

It’s really easy to recycle in Dallas if you live in a house. Just dump that unsorted mass of old newspapers, empty soda cans and milk cartons into a cavernous blue bin, drag it to the curb and let one the city’s lumbering dump trucks haul it away.

For those who live in apartments — nearly half of the city’s population — recycling is much, much harder. There’s no blue bin, no city dump truck. The average apartment complex doesn’t even offer recycling.

Apartments, along with offices, hotels and other businesses, are part of an enormous blind spot in Dallas’ recycling efforts. Together, they generate about 83 percent of the garbage that goes into area landfills. Houses account for a mere 17 percent.

That means, says Texas Campaign for the Environment’s Zac Trahan, that “even if we had 100 percent recycling in single family homes in the city of Dallas, even if people were recycling every single piece of trash,” the city would still be leaving behind a mountain of trash.

Trade groups — the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas, the Hotel Association of North Texas, and the Building Owners and Managers Association in particular — fought hard against attempts to include mandatory commercial recycling as part of the long-term garbage plan the city adopted last February. They did, however, agree to survey members to see just how many offered recycling.

The results, which have been sitting on a shelf at City Hall for the past several months, are uninspiring.

Office buildings do OK, with 84 percent offering recycling for a 21 percent “waste diversion” rate, about two-thirds that of the average Dallas home dweller. Hotels and apartments do worse, with 37 percent of apartment complexes and 61 percent of hotels offering recycling. Their waste-diversion numbers are even more paltry, 6 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

And it’s important to note that these figures very likely overstate the amount of recycling that’s going on, perhaps by a large degree. Fewer than a quarter of the buildings surveyed bothered to respond. It seems safe to assume that the three-quarters who ignored the survey are less likely to be environmental stewards.

The trade groups all say they’re working to improve recycling among members. Hotel Association executive director Cecile Newberry Fernandez says her organization is forming “hotel working group” to improve recycling efforts and will host regular sustainability programs. Teresa Foster, head of the Building Owners and Managers Association, suggested her industry’s diversion rate would likely be higher if the reams of paper shredded by law firms, medical offices, and other businesses was counted in the survey and said her group would work with smaller and mid-sized properties, who often say they’re prohibited from recycling by space constraints. Kathy Carlton, government affairs director for the Apartment Association, says educational efforts are underway, with a goal of getting 50 percent of properties to offer recycling by the end of 2015.

Carlton says her group has settled on a logo. “Do the logo, and everything else follows from there,” she says.

All three groups remain skeptical of a mandate. Carlton says she’s optimistic that Dallas’ apartment complexes can voluntarily increase recycling to the point that a mandatory ordinance would be superfluous.

“That’s the goal. That’s always the goal. It is always better when people are doing it voluntarily.”

Trahan, who’s been meeting quarterly with the city and the trade groups to discuss recycling, thinks voluntary efforts are doomed to fall short. He nods to incremental progress (e.g. getting businesses to cough up recycling data, then taking steps to improve) but says recycling mandates like ones already passed in Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin are necessary for more significant improvement.

At Least 40% of Active Texas Landfills are Leaking Toxins

Written by

grview-36302-1Public News Service – TX
John Michaelson

AUSTIN, Texas – As the battle over the site of a proposed landfill in central Texas continues, a new analysis is raising concerns statewide. The study finds that 40 percent of active landfills in the state that monitor their impact on groundwater are leaking toxins, and James Abshier, founder of a group called Environmental Protection in the Interest of Caldwell County, says it’s likely more.

“That’s just landfills that have measurement devices,” he points out. “Active, running landfills. That’s not closed landfills and it’s just the ones where the contamination has reached the sensors.”

The new data on contamination is from Texas Campaign for the Environment, and it comes as Caldwell County considers a plan for a new landfill that would take in 25 million tons of trash and operate for 40 years. The company proposing the landfill wants it located just off Texas State Highway 130, which Abshier and others have been fighting against because, he says, the land in the area is unstable and three major aquifers run through or nearby.

“One is the Carrizo-Wilcox, which is a major aquifer for over 12 million people,” he says. “And the landfill is going to be right over the Leona. The Leona is an aquifer that feeds the Carrizo-Wilcox, so there’s definitely a chance of contamination into the water system.”

The Caldwell County Board of Commissioners this past week approved an ordinance that Abshier hopes will block the development, but he also explains that there could be a loophole.

“It allegedly removes the possibility of having the site at the 130 and 183 intersection,” he says. “Now there’s been some differences of opinion on that, and the company that wants to put the landfill at 130 Environmental Park thinks that they can be grandfathered in.”

The proposal comes from Georgia-based Green Group Holdings, which runs landfills in a handful of states and is also currently pursuing a site about 45 minutes northwest of Houston in Waller County.

Plan to drill for gas in Dallas goes down to defeat

Written by

frackingprotestDallas Morning News
Rudolph Bush

An energy company’s request for three gas drilling permits failed to win the approval of the Dallas City Council on Wednesday. The defeat could be the death knell for natural gas drilling in a city known around the world for its ties to the petroleum industry.

The permits, sought by Trinity East Energy, got just nine of the needed 12 votes. That “supermajority” of the 15-member council was required because the City Plan Commission earlier voted against approval of the permits.

The vote effectively means that in return for paying the city $19 million in 2008, Trinity East got little more than an up-or-down vote on its plan to seek natural gas on city-owned park land. The city got a quick infusion of cash at a time when the recession was playing havoc with the budget. It also got a nasty controversy over how the deal with Trinity East was structured and five years of bitter debate about the safety of urban gas drilling.

And now, according to Mayor Mike Rawlings and others, the city probably faces a costly lawsuit from Trinity East. The threat of litigation has long loomed over the drilling debate. Drilling opponents dismissed it as hollow. But the risk to taxpayers is real, Rawlings said.

After hearing dozens of speakers for and against the permits, the mayor gave a lengthy speech of his own. He opposes drilling in Dallas, he said. There’s a place for everything, but there’s no place in this city for drilling, particularly hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations. He will support new city drilling regulations that are shaping up as some of the most prohibitive in the region.

Despite all that, Rawlings called on the council to approve Trinity East’s permits. He read from a prepared statement, saying he was certain he would be called as a witness in a lawsuit.

“Today is not about being pro or con on a theoretical issue,” he said. “We have a contract with a business. … There is a chance that by voting no we could cost the city of Dallas millions of dollars of legal and other expenses.”

After the vote, Trinity East chief executive Tom Blanton wouldn’t say whether a lawsuit is next.

“Oh, heavens, I don’t know. We’re so far from that,” he said.

Rawlings compared the dispute to a poker game, one in which Dallas holds the best cards. The city has done everything by the book, he said.

Trinity East can’t drill economically where it wants to drill before its contract runs out in February. Therefore, according to Rawlings, the company’s stated intention to drill amounted to a bluff: Trinity East’s only hope was that an emotional reaction to fracking would lead the council to reject the permits. Then, the company might be able to cash in through a lawsuit.

A leading opponent of the drilling plans, Zac Trahan of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, praised Rawlings for his bold stand against drilling operations in Dallas. But he drew a different gambling analogy, saying the mayor was asking the city to take a risk by approving the permits.

Council member Philip Kingston, who opposed the permits, said his vote wasn’t based on emotion but on his conclusion that Trinity East’s request would violate city ordinances against drilling in a floodplain, among other things.

Council member Monica Alonzo, who represents the area of northwest Dallas where the drilling was to take place, also voted against the permits.

The council vote followed a long hearing in which dozens of drilling opponents spoke out. One was Irving City Council member Rose Cannaday. The area in question, near the Irving border, is beautiful — no place for gas wells and production facilities, she said.

“You have many other options to develop in that area,” she said.

A handful of gas industry supporters spoke in favor of the permits, saying thousands of wells have been safely drilled across North Texas. Had Trinity East been seeking the same permits in Fort Worth, a hearing before the City Council wouldn’t even be necessary, said Dallas Cothrum, a consultant for Trinity East.

Fort Worth’s welcoming approach hasn’t resonated well in Dallas, though. Concerns about earthquakes, water and air pollution and noise have only intensified since Dallas first leased its land to Trinity East in 2008. Those concerns have led the Plan Commission to begin drafting a tough new drilling ordinance. If enacted, people on both sides of the issue say, the ordinance will make it very difficult to drill inside the Dallas city limits.

“That’s the momentum right now,” Trahan said.

Staff writer Scott Goldstein contributed to this report.

Yeas and nays

Votes from 12 of 15 City Council members were needed to grant zoning permits for Trinity East Energy to explore for gas in Dallas. Only nine council members voted yes.

FOR: Mayor Mike Rawlings, Jerry Allen, Tennell Atkins, Rick Callahan, Dwaine Caraway, Jennifer Staubach Gates, Vonciel Jones Hill, Sheffie Kadane, Lee Kleinman

AGAINST: Monica Alonzo, Carolyn Davis, Sandy Greyson, Scott Griggs, Philip Kingston, Adam Medrano

Texas law contributes to electronics recycling boom

Written by

electronics_DMN_7_13Dallas Morning News
Krista Torralva

The tinkling of precious metals greets Chase Hinsey as he walks into work at his Fort Worth warehouse. Pieces of gold, copper and aluminum coat the floor. Starting about 3 a.m., workers break apart computers and televisions and send them through shredding machinery to pick apart materials for recycling or reuse. Hinsey and his company are part of a recent surge of people working in the fastest-growing segment of the scrap recycling industry.

Electronics recycling in the U.S. is now a $20.6 billion industry, up from less than $1 billion in 2002, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. Employees in the U.S. electronics recycling industry multiplied from 6,000 in 2002 to 45,000 in 2011. Several factors have contributed to the industry’s rapid revolution: significant growth in the consumption of electronics, awareness brought on by state law and recycling programs, and investment in equipment and technology.

Hinsey, 30, saw an opportunity in 2010, when he opened Innovative Electronics Recycling in Fort Worth.

“I wanted to find a business that not a lot of people are in and a service that we could provide,” the company vice president of operations said. His wife, Amanda Hinsey, is the president.

Hinsey worked alone for the first four months. Now he employs about 30 people. He declined to disclose his company’s revenue but said it is growing and he plans to hire about 10 more people in the next few weeks.

The industry still has room for growth, said Robin Wiener, president of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. More than 4.4 million tons of electronics were recycled or reused in 2011 in the U.S. But an estimated 2 million tons of used electronics each year “are sitting in your basement or you’re sending to a landfill instead,” Wiener said.

The majority of used electronic products that enter the recycling stream come from businesses. Only about a quarter of recycled electronics come from residential consumers, Wiener said.

Giant electronics recycler Best Buy launched a recycling program mainly for consumers in 2008. Before that, customers who had large electronics delivered to their home asked the deliverers to take back their old ones, said Scott Weislow, director of environmental services for Best Buy Inc.

Making it the law

Texas is one of Best Buy’s most successful states for collecting used electronics. Texas Best Buy stores have collected about 7.5 million pounds, about 8 percent of the total amount collected across the United States and Puerto Rico, Weislow said.

Aside from the state’s size, a major factor is the Texas laws regulating the disposal of electronics, he said.

In 2007, the Texas Legislature passed a law that required computer manufacturers to take back and recycle or reuse old computers. In 2011, the state added television manufacturers to the law, and the first recycling report is due to the state next year. Under this program, consumers can recycle their products for free. Manufacturers are required to report how much materials they collect to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality each year.

More than 24 million pounds of computer equipment was collected in 2012 — the most in a single year since the program began, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report to the Legislature. About 20 million pounds were recycled and more than 3 million were reused. The report only represents recycling from manufacturers who are required to report to the program and “doesn’t fully represent recycling activity in Texas.”

In 2005, California was the only state that had in effect a law regulating how electronics are disposed of. This year about 25 states have electronics recycling laws in effect.

Dell’s early efforts

A few years before any state enacted the law, environmental groups called on Round Rock-based Dell Inc. to better recycle its computers. Advocates stressed that computers ended up in landfills, where toxic materials such as lead and mercury could leak into the ground, water and air. Dell launched a program in 2002 for consumers to have old computers picked up and recycled for a small fee. By 2004, the company included the fee to recycle in the price of the computers.

Dell collected more than 10 million pounds of computer equipment — the most of any manufacturer — in Texas in 2012, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report to the Legislature.

The number of pounds received each year varies greatly for small businesses like Hinsey’s, he said. In a typical week, he said, he collects about 250,000 pounds’ worth of printers. But pounds of computers vary by the types of computers, he said. A newer laptop, for instance, is much smaller and lighter than a 5- or 10-year-old desktop computer.

Hinsey’s company lost money in its first year and half, while he purchased machinery to get started and spread awareness in the community about his company, he said. Since his first year, the amount of material he’s received has about tripled each year.

“Everybody wondered if there was a profit to be made, and everybody wanted somebody else to find out if there was before they dove into it,” Hinsey said. “There is a profit, but until you get volume, it’s difficult to make money in this market.”