Sony champions free recycling

Written by

sonyrecycleFortune
Marc Gunther

The company that invented the CD, the Walkman and the PlayStation will soon become an environmental pioneer, too: Sony says it will offer free recycling of all its products in the United States.

Last week’s surprise announcement from the global electronics giant – Sony posted $71 billion in 2006 revenues – could have a big impact. It pressures other companies to take back and recycle TV sets, stereos, music players, laptops, DVD players, video game machines, cameras and other electronic waste.

“This represents a challenge to the rest of the industry,” says Mark Small, who is vice president of environment, safety and health for Sony Electronics.

Until now, the TV industry had been unified in its opposition to the idea that manufacturers should be responsible for taking back and safely recycling the things they make. Sony itself belongs to an industry coalition that fights state take-back laws. But in a turnabout, Sony now says it is the company’s responsibility “to provide customers with end-of-life solutions for all the products we manufacture.”

Chances are, its rivals will find it hard to disagree. That’s what has happened in the computer industry, where Hewlett Packard led the way in recycling and now competes with Dell to be the most eco-friendly maker of PCs. Under pressure, Apple recently agreed to expand its recycling, too.

Environmentalists like Barbara Kyle of the Computer TakeBack Campaign intend to do what they can to bring about a similar scenario in the consumers electronics business. She applauded Sony’s initiative.

“We’ve seen the IT industry doing takeback,” Kyle says, “but the TV industry had been united in saying they can’t make the economics work. This suggests that it’s not impossible.” If Sony can offer free and convenient recycling, “presumably they can all do it,” she says.

The economics, as it happens, don’t work very well. While useful materials like metals, glass and plastic can be recovered when electronics are recycled, the value of the materials is not enough to cover the expense of recycling. Sony won’t say what its program will cost.

But the company has set an ambitious long-term goal for itself: To recycle one pound of old consumer electronics equipment for every pound of new product sold.

Says Sony’s Small: “For our business to grow, we must embrace sustainability.”

Thus Sony puts itself squarely in the camp of environmentalists and a handful of companies who are trying to turn our throwaway culture into one where stuff that’s no longer wanted or needed is reused, recycled and turned into something else. Wal-Mart , Toyota (Charts) and others have embraced this idea, which is called “zero waste.”

Activists have focused on electronic waste because it’s one of the fastest-growing categories of garbage, and often contains hazardous materials like mercury and lead. An oft-cited 2005 study by the U.S. EPA found that about 1.5 to 1.9 million tons of electronic waste was discarded in landfills; only about 345,000 to 379,000 tons were recycled.

Other surveys suggest that consumer electronics are rarely thrown away, but more often donated or sold.

Sony admits that its program, as currently conceived, is just a start. Beginning Sept. 15, the company will take back any Sony-branded product at 75 drop-off centers in 32 states operated by Waste Management Recycle America, a unit of the trash-hauling giant Waste Management. That’s obviously not enough, and 19 are bunched in Minnesota, where Sony and Waste Management have had a pilot program for years. You can find a list of drop-off sites at sony.com/recycle.

Within a year, Sony and Waste Management will offer 150 sites. Their goal is to eventually provide drop off locations within 20 miles of 95 percent of the U.S. population. Sony will also try to persuade retailers who sell its products to take them back; retail giants like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Circuit City could eventually be enlisted to pick up old electronics when they deliver new.

If all goes according to plan, disassembly will be done in the United States. Vast amounts of electronic waste are currently exported to poor countries, particularly China, where safety and environmental standards are lax.

As a member of an industry group that calls itself the Electronics Manufacturers Coalition For Responsible Recycling, Sony had opposed electronics take-back laws passed in nine states.

Small told Fortune that Sony has been “a reluctant member of the coalition” and might now drop out. Fifteen other companies, including giants Philips, Panasonic and Sanyo, are part of the group.

The Consumer Electronics Association, which includes a far broader range of firms, has also opposed state laws, saying a national solution to e-waste is required. The CEA has a website for consumers at http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/ that includes information about where electronics can be recycled.

It’s too soon to know how other electronics firms would respond to the Sony initiative, says Kristina Taylor of the CEA.

“What Sony has done is fantastic, but it’s voluntary,” she says. “The industry doesn’t want to be mandated because not every TV manufacturer can afford it.”

Eventually, though, the cost of product takeback may become part of the cost of doing business.

Lead Toxins Take a Global Round Trip

Written by

leadjewelryWall Street Journal
Gordan Fairclough

YIWU, China — High levels of toxic lead turning up in cheap jewelry from China are prompting recalls in the U.S. But some of the lead used by these Chinese manufacturers comes from an unconventional source: computers and other electronic goods discarded in Western countries and dumped in China.

Liu Mouye, owner of the Yiwu Yiming Alloy Factory here, says the lead alloy she sells to jewelry makers around Yiwu — an important hub for low-priced Chinese exports — is made in part from so-called e-waste that arrives by ship in southern China from the U.S. and other developed countries.

“I’ve seen the containers come in,” Ms. Liu says. “Each one has about 60 tons of parts removed from machines and appliances” from abroad.

Two recent studies suggest lead from such sources is turning up in Chinese-made jewelry sold at U.S. discount stores and malls — closing a globalization loop in which toxic materials from high-tech garbage are turned into potentially dangerous goods for kids and shipped back.

Jeffrey Weidenhamer and Michael Clement, chemists at Ashland University in Ohio, studied the composition of children’s highly leaded jewelry and key chains found in stores last year and determined that some also contained levels of copper and tin that suggested the source was lead solder used in electronic circuit boards. Other jewelry samples were also found to contain antimony, a toxic metalloid element used to harden lead used in batteries.

The United Nations estimates that up to 50 million tons of e-waste is thrown away world-wide each year. Large amounts are shipped into China, even though the country’s laws essentially ban imports of e-waste, according to China’s State Environmental Protection Administration.

For lead, the trip to China from the U.S. typically goes something like this: U.S. consumers and businesses send their old electronics to recycling firms — often by way of innocuous recycling drives. Some of those firms then sell the electronics to dealers in the U.S., who sell them to dealers in China. Chinese companies buy the e-waste and strip lead and other re-sellable materials from it — often discarding harmful materials along the way, adding to local pollution. Those firms then sell the recovered lead to alloy makers like Ms. Liu, who provide it to Chinese manufacturers. The lead makes its way — sometimes at toxic levels — into trinkets sold to consumers in the U.S.

“This ‘return-to-sender’ issue is really important,” says Ted Smith, founder of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an organization in San Jose, Calif., focused on the environmental impact of the high-tech industry. Mr. Smith points out an added irony: Many of the electronics consumed in the U.S. are manufactured in China in the first place. “Talk about globalization,” he says. “If you drew a map of this, the arrows would go in lots of different directions.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it doesn’t regulate the export of most old electronics, including cellphones and the circuit boards that make computers run, in either a “shredded” or intact form, because it considers them non-hazardous. In January, however, the agency began enforcing a new rule specific to cathode-ray tubes — the TV and computer display screens that are commonly known as CRTs and contain lead. Now, exporters of intact or broken CRTs destined for recycling must notify the EPA of the export and get permission from the country importing the CRTs before doing so.

The EPA doesn’t have any laws that ban the export of non-hazardous waste — so if what it defines as non-hazardous waste is sent to another country, it doesn’t know.

“We have had some very general inquiries from the Chinese government saying they want to discuss this area, but we do not generally get requests from China regarding the shipped materials,” says Bob Tonetti, an e-waste expert at the EPA.

Amid rising concerns about the safety of exports from China, lead has become a particular focus — especially in items made for children. This year the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued 18 recall notices affecting more than 6.7 million pieces of jewelry for children and teenagers that it says contain dangerous levels of lead — almost all of it made in China. That’s a sharp increase from 10 lead-related recalls in 2006 and three the year before that.

“In recent years, we’ve seen an influx of metal children’s jewelry” that has “high levels of accessible lead,” says agency spokesman Scott Wolfson.

Public-health officials have been fighting for years to keep lead out of children’s jewelry. Lead has even turned up in snaps on Chinese-made overalls and shirts for babies and toddlers and on gardening gloves for kids. Ingested, it can cause brain damage and death. The risk is highest for young children, who are more likely to mouth or swallow pieces of jewelry. A new California law essentially limits the lead content of the base metal in children’s jewelry to 0.06% starting Sept. 1. (New regulations for adult jewelry go into effect March 1.) The Consumer Product Safety Commission uses the 0.06% limit as a guideline on children’s jewelry and has proposed it as a federal regulation.

The recalled jewelry ranged from “Best Friends Forever” necklaces sold at accessories retailer Claire’s Stores Inc. to necklace and earring sets with plastic “birthstones” sold by Sears Holdings Corp.’s Kmart stores. The commission has also issued recalls this year for Chinese-made toys coated with lead paint.

Enforcement efforts have escalated since a child died last year in Minneapolis of acute lead poisoning after swallowing a Chinese-made charm from a bracelet given away with Reebok sneakers.

A spokeswoman for Claire’s didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Christian Brathwaite, a spokesman for Sears Holdings, says “Kmart takes customers’ safety very seriously,” adding: when a “product has been identified as having an issue with lead, we’ve stopped selling that product.”

In China, however, lead alloy remains a favored material for costume-jewelry makers. It is plentiful and cheap, often selling for half the price of zinc alloy, the other metal mixture commonly used to make costume jewelry. Lead has a relatively low melting point, which makes it easier to work with, and lends heft to inexpensive jewelry.

The Chinese government sets limits on lead content in toys, but not in jewelry for children or adults. Many other countries also lack legal limits or fail to enforce them.

Companies like Ms. Liu’s and other metal traders and alloy manufacturers say they buy lead from recyclers, mix it with other materials and sell it to jewelry makers in Yiwu and Qingdao in eastern Shandong province, two centers of costume-jewelry production in China. Nationwide, China’s costume-jewelry industry has annual sales of about $4.5 billion — and about 70% is exported.

In Yiwu, jewelry sellers make no secret of using toxic lead alloy in their products. They insist buyers know what they’re getting and say using lead is the only way to offer the low prices that foreign purchasers are willing to pay.

Wang Xubin, the owner of Xu Lin Decoration Co., specializes in making costume jewelry for teenagers. His raw material of choice: a metal alloy that he says is 70% to 80% lead. The metal is molded into bracelets and pendants in the shape of crosses, eagles, dragons and crowns.

“We do what our customers want. If they ask for no lead, we can do it,” says Mr. Wang. “But a lot of Americans see the cost of lowering the lead content and say: ‘forget it.'”

At Yiwu Zhongtai Ornament Co.’s factory on the outskirts of Yiwu, ingots of lead alloy are melted down in large crucibles. Young men then ladle the molten metal — about 55% to 60% lead, according to the company — by hand into rubber molds. On a recent visit, none of the workers was wearing protective facemasks or gloves.

Pieces of molded metal are then popped out, filed and plated with a thin coat of another metal, often a mixture of gold and silver or palladium. They are then assembled by rows of workers soldering and placing fake gemstones on the necklaces and earrings.

“It’s too costly to make lead-free products,” says owner Wang Qinjuan. “Chinese products have to be sold cheaply in foreign markets, or they are not competitive.”

Some manufacturers say they are moving away from lead alloy at the request of customers, especially those from the U.S. and Western Europe. Nearly all say that, if a buyer wants them to, factories can lower the lead content of their products. “People can choose. We give them whatever they want,” says Ni Lanzhen, a wholesaler of jewelry and trinkets, including a tiny ring topped with a lead flower. “But most of the market is lead alloy.”

Some importers, on the other hand, complain insuring product quality from China can be difficult. Myles Marks, an employee of DM Merchandising in Elmhurst, Ill., says that his company stepped up testing after authorities discovered that some Chinese-made bracelets contained lead, which the company was unaware of. “There are items we’ve had to test and retest three and four times,” says Mr. Marks, when they fail to meet lead standards. “It’s a colossal pain. And it’s certainly costly.”

Mr. Marks says that sometimes Chinese suppliers will “do the old bait and switch,” winning an order with a product that meets an importer’s specifications and then mass producing the items with cheaper, lead-containing, materials. But while many companies express frustration, few, including DM Merchandising, are willing to publicly identify their Chinese suppliers.

Meanwhile, the e-waste problem is attracting the attention of some lawmakers. Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, recently sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office expressing concern about the practice of exporting e-waste from the U.S. to foreign countries. Prompted by the letter, the GAO plans to begin research on the topic soon.

“We need this study to get an idea of the problem’s global scope,” Mr. Lantos said in an email. “I am concerned that U.S. consumers who recycle computers and other electronic equipment may be led to believe that they are doing good when in fact they are doing harm.”

TX Plan To Control E-Waste Could Be National Model

Written by

capitoltxAssociated Press
Matt Slagle

Texans buying new computer equipment often face a perplexing question — what should be done with the obsolete PCs they’ve just replaced? Often, old computer gear ends up collecting dust in an attic or garage because consumers don’t know what else to do. But the trash bin is a legal — if not environmentally friendly — option in Texas, too.

That so-called “e-waste” regularly ends up in landfills and can slowly leach toxic components — lead, mercury and other harmful materials — into the environment.

The United Nations Environmental Program estimates some 20 to 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated annually, and 85 percent of it ends up in landfills.

In Texas, a bill authored by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, and a companion bill in the House, would force companies that sell computer products in the state to offer free pickup and recycling programs for consumers.

“This is a big first step and a lot of work has gone into getting agreement from a variety of folks,” said Watson, a former Austin mayor. “This is a major step in environmental protection and will make a substantial difference.”

Seemingly everyone involved — environmental groups, lawmakers, large manufacturers including Round Rock-based Dell Inc., and industry organizations like the Texas Association of Business — support the bills. If passed, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality would oversee a recycling plan requiring manufacturers who sell computer gear in Texas to label their equipment with pickup and recycling information.

Manufacturers and retailers that fail to comply with the rules would face fines of $10,000 for the first violation and $25,000 for each additional violation. The companies also would have to submit annual reports to the TCEQ detailing how much material they’ve recycled.

“The primary responsibility is on the producers and that’s where it belongs,” said Robin Schneider of the environmental group Texas Campaign for the Environment. “This is a huge step forward.”

The federal government has yet to pass any sort of national e-waste legislation, leaving states on their own. The resulting patchwork of rules means various states have devised different ways to deal with the issue.

In Maine, the first state to enact electronics recycling legislation, the government set up a program in which manufacturers must pay the state to have their products recycled. California, meanwhile, charges customers a small upfront fee when they purchase electronics. The money goes into a statewide fund used for computer recycling.

Texas’ plan differs in that individual companies, not the state, will bear the brunt of e-waste recycling responsibilities. It’s a welcome change from the rules in other states, said Tod Arbogast, director of sustainable business at Dell.

“We have looked in detail at the two bills and we think it is an absolutely unique approach that is a market innovation to drive efficiency,” he said. “We think that the Texas model has an opportunity to set an example.”

While she is pleased with the progress so far, Schneider said she would like to see more products covered in the recycling law. The proposed bills only cover desktop PCs, notebooks and computer monitors. Other device including televisions, personal digital assistants and cell phones aren’t covered.

Schneider said televisions in particular could become a major recycling issue in February 2009, when full-power TV stations are under a federal mandate to switch from analog to digital broadcasts. Consumers will still be able to receive digital broadcasts on their old sets if they are connected to cable or satellite service, or add a box to convert the digital signal to an analog format. But the switch is expected to inspire many consumers to buy new digital television sets, potentially sending millions of older models to landfills unless recycling options are in place.

“The bigger question I think is how are we going to get electronics makers to design products with less toxins in the first place?” she said. “We have to deal with the beginning of the process.”

While he expressed some privacy concerns about the personal data still saved on his aging laptop and desktop computer, Dallas resident Bryon Richardson said the law sounds like a good idea. He’s had the desktop hanging around in his home office since 1993.

“I would take that in a heartbeat,” said Richardson, 38. “Right now I just move it from one corner to the other when I clean. I really don’t want to just throw it in the garbage.”

Apple to Begin Recycling Customers’ Old Macs

Written by

appledemoAssociated Press

Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) will soon adopt an environmentally friendly twist for buyers of new Macintosh computers by offering to recycle their old computers for free.

The Cupertino-based company said its expanded take-back offer will begin in June. U.S. customers who buy a new Mac through the Apple store online or any Apple retail store will receive free shipping and recycling of their old machines.

Currently, Apple retail stores accept old iPod music players for free recycling. In addition, Cupertino residents may drop off old Macs at company headquarters, while others pay a $30 recycling fee to drop off or ship their computers.

Environmental advocacy organizations that have criticized Apple’s recycling initiatives in the past applauded the computer maker’s expanded program, saying it is now closer in line with those of other major PC makers, notably Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Dell Inc. (DELL).

But the environmental groups contend Apple still needs to do more and will present a proposal at Apple’s shareholder meeting Thursday calling for the company to study ways to improve recycling.

China’s toxic junkyard

Written by

Electronic-waste-in-ChinaFort Worth Star-Telegram
Tim Johnson

When discarded computers vanish from desktops around the world, they often end up in Guiyu, which may be the electronic-waste capital of the globe. The city is a sprawling computer slaughterhouse. Instead of offal and blood, its runoff includes toxic metals and acids. Some 60,000 laborers toil here at primitive e-waste recycling — if it can be called that — even as the work imperils their health.

Computer carcasses line the streets, awaiting dismemberment. Circuit boards and hard drives lie in huge mounds. At thousands of workshops, laborers shred and grind plastic casings into particles, snip cables and pry chips from circuit boards. Workers pass the boards through red-hot kilns or acid baths to dissolve lead, silver and other metals from the digital detritus. The acrid smell of burning solder and melting plastic fills the air.

What occurs is more akin to e-waste scavenging. Though China bans imports of electronic waste, its factories clamor for raw materials — even those yanked from the guts of discarded computers — and ill-informed workers seek out computer-recycling jobs. So the ban is ignored, and the waste comes in torrents. Under the guise of “recycling,” U.S. e-waste brokers ship discarded computers and dump an environmental problem on China.

In the United States, consumers, manufacturers and retailers are only beginning to pay attention to the cost of safely ending the lives of electronics. By next year, obsolete computers amassed in the United States will number 500 million, according to the U.S. National Safety Council.

“People just don’t know what to do with them,” said Jim Puckett, the coordinator of the Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based group that advises consumers about sustainable methods to dispose of e-waste.

Hewlett-Packard of Palo Alto, Calif., committed this year to eliminate a range of hazardous chemicals from its products and has helped lobby for state laws requiring manufacturers to take back old equipment.

Still, a lot of e-waste from the United States continues to seep into China and West Africa, where corruption is large and smuggling rampant. The U.S. government doesn’t ban, or even monitor, e-waste exports. What’s more, the Environmental Protection Agency has no certification process for electronic-waste recyclers. Any company can claim it recycles waste, even if all it does is export it.

Guiyu (pronounced GWAY-yoo), a few hours’ drive northeast of Hong Kong, is by far China’s biggest e-waste scrap heap. The city comprises 21 villages with 5,500 family workshops handling e-waste. According to the local government Web site, city businesses process 1.5 million tons of e-waste a year, pulling in $75 million in revenue. As much as 80 percent of it comes from overseas.

City officials are proud of the e-waste industry but sensitive about its reputation as a dirty business that feeds off smuggled waste and abuses labor rights. Journalists who probe quickly find themselves detained by local thugs or police officers, and their digital photographs or video footage erased. One recent visitor was stopped within two hours of arriving and ordered to leave.

“They don’t want the media . . . to write articles about the negative aspect of the Guiyu area,” Wu said. “[They think] maybe the central government will punish them.”

Local bosses pay little regard to workers’ health or to regulations that prohibit dumping acid baths into rivers and venting toxic fumes. In one district of Guiyu, a migrant worker stood amid piles of capacitors and circuit boards as fellow workers with pliers tore off soldered metal parts and burned electronic components over braziers to determine their content.

“If you burn it, you can tell what kind of plastic it is,” said the man, who gave only his surname, Wang. “They smell different. There are many kinds of plastic, probably 60 or 70 types.”

An average computer yields only $1.50 to $2 worth of commodities such as shredded plastic, copper and aluminum, according to a report in November by the Government Accountability Office, a watchdog arm of Congress.

E-waste recyclers in the United States can’t cover their costs with such low yields, especially while respecting environmental regulations. So they charge an average of 50 cents a pound for taking in old computers, about $20 to $28 per unit. At that price, experts say, recycling can be done safely and profitably. But some U.S. brokers then ship the e-waste abroad for greater profits.

Knight Ridder special correspondent Fan Linjun contributed to this article.

Questions and answers

Q. Why should I be concerned about what happens to my old computer once I erase my personal information?

A. Computers and other electronics contain numerous hazardous materials in the circuitry, monitors and plastic casings.

Monitors: Between 4 and 8 pounds of lead, which can be toxic if ingested. When buried in a landfill, it can leach into groundwater.

Electronics systems and circuit boards: Small amounts of tin, copper, gold, palladium and antimony. Trace amounts of beryllium, mercury and cadmium, all heavy metals and harmful — sometimes carcinogenic — if ingested. Plastic housings: Presence of flame retardants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, a toxic substance that builds up over time in human bodies.

Q. What is the federal government doing about exports of e-waste?

A. Nothing. The United States is the only major nation that hasn’t ratified the 1994 Basel Convention, which bans exports of hazardous electronic waste. Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency has no certification process for electronic-waste recyclers. Any company can claim that it “recycles” e-waste, when all it does is export it.

Q. Where can I get information about responsible e-waste recycling in my area?

A. Many states have recyclers who’ve signed pledges not to export and dump old computers. Here are Web sites to show where they’re available:

Computer Take Back Campaign, www.computertakeback.com
Basel Action Network, www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html

HP is pushing states to force recycling of TVs and computers. Here’s why

Written by

hp-recycleBusiness Week
Lorraine Woellert

A few years ago, when environmentalists in Washington State began agitating to rid local dumps of toxic old computers and televisions, they found an unexpected ally: Hewlett-Packard Co. Teaming up with greens and retailers, HP took on IBM, and several major TV manufacturers, which were resisting recycling programs because of the costs.

Aided by HP’s energetic lobbying, the greens persuaded state lawmakers to adopt a landmark program that forces electronics companies to foot the bill for recycling their old equipment. “This bill puts our market-based economy to work for the environment,” said Washington Governor Christine O. Gregoire as she signed the plan into law on Mar. 24.

The movement to recycle electronic refuse, or “e-waste,” is spreading across the nation, and so is HP’s clout. The company helped the greens win a big battle in Maine in 2004 when the state passed the nation’s first e-waste “take-back” law. Washington followed suit. Now, Minnesota and New Jersey are preparing to act, and 19 other states are weighing legislation. Activists hope to banish high-tech junk from landfills and scrub the nation’s air and water of lead, chromium, mercury, and other toxins prevalent in digital debris.

HP’s efforts have made it the darling of environmentalists. They say take-back laws are more effective at getting digital junk recycled than point-of-sale fees, which tax consumer electronics products to fund state-run recycling programs. They’re also pleased because effective programs in the U.S. reduce the likelihood that the products will be shipped to less developed countries and disassembled under unsafe conditions.

But HP’s agenda isn’t entirely altruistic. Take-back laws play to the company’s strategic strengths. For decades the computer maker has invested in recycling infrastructure, a move that has lowered its production costs, given it a leg up in the secondary market for equipment, and allowed it to build a customer service out of “asset management,” which includes protection of data that might remain on discarded gear.

In 2005, HP recycled more than 70,000 tons of product, the equivalent of about 10% of company sales and a 15% increase from the year before. And it collected more than 2.5 million units (in excess of 25,000 tons) of hardware to be refurbished for resale or donation.

No other electronics maker has a resale business on this scale. But the others may soon wish to emulate HP. “We see legislation coming,” says David Lear, HP’s vice-president for corporate, social, and environmental responsibility. “A lot of companies haven’t stepped up to the plate…. If we do this right, it becomes an advantage to us.”

For television makers, on the other hand, take-back laws are terrifying. Following the lead of PC makers, they’re pushing consumers to replace their bulky television sets with flat-screen models, many of them primed for high- definition viewing. As a result, in the next three years, Americans are expected to throw out more than 550 million analog TV sets and computer monitors that contain thousands of tons of lead. The last thing these companies want are coast-to-coast take-back laws.

More than a dozen consumer electronics companies, including Panasonic, Sony, and Philips, have formed a group called the Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling. Backed by IBM, Canon and Apple, they have dispatched lobbyists to statehouses across the nation, pushing bills that mirror California’s somewhat weak recycling program. Instead of forcing manufacturers to take back waste, they would impose a levy of up to $10 on sales of products to help states cover recycling costs without burdening equipment makers.

The e-waste skirmish is part of an important new front in global environmentalism called product stewardship. Proponents argue that a company’s responsibility for what it sells should include collection and disassembly at the end of the product’s life cycle. As a slogan, product stewardship has been around since the Earth Days of the 1970s, but it is now a serious force in the auto and electronics sectors of Japan and Europe. The movement is likely to broaden in the U.S. as well. Several states are strong-arming auto makers into using less toxic parts, persuading thermostat manufacturers to fund bounties for the return of old mercury-laden devices, and pushing pharmaceutical giants to redesign packaging to reduce waste and accept unused medications for disposal.

But manufacturers have many concerns, including the fact that take-back laws such as Maine’s allocate costs based on the weight of the junk consumers return. Consider the implications for big picture tubes: A company like LG Electronics, which owns the Zenith brand, could end up being responsible for heaps of old Zenith TVs, even though LG’s market share is relatively small. And IBM, which has abandoned the PC market, might still be forced to recycle millions of machines bearing its logo. “They’re really discriminating against legacy manufacturers,” says coalition spokesman David A. Thompson, director of Panasonic Corp.’s Corporate Environmental Dept. “New market entrants have no waste stream. They’re getting a free ride in Maine and Washington.”

Bruised Apple

Environmentalists’ biggest disappointment has been Apple Computer Inc. The company’s progressive image, loyal customers, and retail network make it a natural for a take-back program. Yet Apple has fought such programs, and it lags behind HP and Dell Inc. in voluntary recycling. During Maine’s legislative fight, “they were doing more than any other manufacturer to fight the bill,” says Jon Hinck, staff attorney for Maine’s Natural Resources Council.

When shareholders at last year’s annual meeting hit Apple over the Maine bill, CEO Steven P. Jobs publicly dismissed the gripe with a barnyard profanity. This year, green groups have put a resolution on the agenda of the Apr. 27 shareholder meeting that directs Apple to study how to boost recycling. “They are laggards in a number of ways on the issue of e-waste. It’s come to the point where we need to have the company confronted,” says Conrad MacKerron, director of the corporate social responsibility program at As You Sow Foundation, a green advocacy group that pushed the resolution.

Apple says critics ignore the company’s efforts to use recyclable and clean materials in its products. It has cut lead use and says that, by weight, 90% of Apple computers can be recycled. Their sleek designs and spare packaging also mean less waste, says Chief Operating Officer Timothy D. Cook. “It’s important to look at the whole of the process,” he says, “not just one part.” Cook also argues that take-back programs overlook a key fact: “Recycling is a responsibility of the person who makes the product, the people who use the product, the people who sell the product, and the government.”

If Apple hopes to catch up with HP, it might have to think harder about the first part of that sentence.

Planned road at park is killed

Written by

trinityparkFt. Worth Star-Telegram
Mike Lee

Amid persistent opposition from residents, City Council members killed a proposal to build a road along the edge of Trinity Park, saying they want to “go back to the drawing board” to ensure that any future road has a minimal impact on the park.

But protesters, including state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, said the council should go a step further and amend the city charter to require a citywide vote before parkland could be given up for a road. The charter already requires a vote before parkland can be sold.

“Whether parkland is sold or is asphalted over, it is gone,” said Pat Cheong, president of the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County.

The road, which would have run alongside the park and cut through one section, was included as a possible future project in the city’s Master Thoroughfare Plan, which determines where streets will go. It was not funded and had not been approved for construction.

Still, a coalition of residents had mounted a campaign against the road, circulating e-mails and other information, and had marched in protest.

Councilwoman Wendy Davis questioned some of the information that had circulated about the proposed road.

“I’m concerned about a lot of rumors and unfair conclusions and conspiracies,” Davis said.

Still, she said, the proposal “doesn’t address the impact on the park. … We need to completely go back to the drawing board.

The proposed road had been included in city plans since 1990, although no money was ever earmarked for it, Transportation Director Robert Goode said. It was designed to relieve traffic on University Drive and West Seventh Street, and on the existing north-south road through Trinity Park. It would have required about 6.5 acres of the western edge of the park, most of which is currently a service center.

Most council members agreed with Davis, though, that revising the charter would be inappropriate. Councilman Sal Espino suggested notifying neighborhood and community groups about the potential use of parkland.

Councilman Donavan Wheatfall said he supported changing the charter to give voters more control of parks, but Councilman Jungus Jordan said each election would cost $265,000.

“I can equip five parks in my district with $265,000,” he said.

Burnam said the charter change would be the best protection.

“I know the difference between real public participation and faux public participation,” he said.

Resident Charles Dreyfus said the council set the wheels in motion a few years ago when it moved the proposed road to accommodate the South of Seventh Street development west of the park.

“It gave value to the developer; it took great value from the park,” he said.

“I’m concerned about a lot of rumors and unfair conclusions and conspiracies.”

Appointee for a Day

Written by

Mineral Wells Index
Lacie Morrison

Recently appointed to the Municipal Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Advisory Council as a representative of the general public, Mineral Wells resident James McQuaid has decided to rescind his name from consideration for the position.

As a representative of the general public, McQuaid was called upon last Thursday “to resign from the council because of his conflict of interest with his wife being in the waste industry,” commented Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment.

McQuaid’s wife, Audie McQuaid, is employed by Trinity Waste as a municipal marketing manager.

“The Municipal Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Advisory Council is just an appointed-type position,” said James McQuaid. “I was originally told it wasn’t going to be a problem. … I was later advised otherwise.”

He told the Index he had already submitted a letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality asking to have his name removed from consideration.

“I’ll probably hear something [Tuesday],” he added.

Schneider was satisfied with his decision.

“We’re very pleased he’s made this decision,” she said. “This appointment is critical. … The public needs someone without his huge conflict of interest.”

Gary Trim, with TCEQ Waste Permits Division, said he wasn’t surprised by McQuaid’s decision.

“There were some concerns on his appointment,” Trim noted. “It’s an unfortunate situation.”

TCEQ Spokesman Andy Saenz said they weren’t aware of the conflict of interest until it was brought to their attention.

“We understand he was very qualified [but] that piece of information was very important to know,” Saenz said.

In future applications, Saenz noted they would ask applicants about potential or perceived conflicts of interest. With the position now available, Saenz said they have a couple of options to consider.

“We can go back to the original list,” he said. “If we don’t feel like there’s enough in the pool, we can ask for more applicants. That decision will be made soon.”

There were five applications other than McQuaid’s submitted for consideration and the TCEQ has two opportunities to address this issue, said Saenz.

“I just thought it’d be an opportunity to serve my community,” McQuaid said. “I’m still interested in doing that.”

The 18-member council was set up in 1983 by the 69th Legislative Session to advise the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on solid waste management and resource recovery. Members include representatives from various sized cities and counties and municipalities, solid waste professionals and a representative from a private environmental conversation organization, among others.

“There needs to be some balance [of representation],” commented Norman Hall, of Lake Palo Pinto, another applicant for the position. “The whole idea was to provide a broader representation … of the community at large.”

Don’t Pave the Park

Written by

trinitypark

Fort Worth Weekly Op-Ed
Pat Cheong

Park land is a finite resource. Once it’s gone, whether sold or paved over, we’ve lost it. Two years ago, the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County conducted a study of park land in Tarrant County. The conclusion: Today, neither Tarrant County in general nor Fort Worth in particular has enough park acreage to meet national minimum standards.

With the population growth projected for the foreseeable future, we should be preserving existing park lands and acquiring more, not degrading existing parks by doing things like building major roads over the top of them — as has been proposed in Trinity Park.

The League has written to Mayor Moncrief and members of the Fort Worth City Council proposing an amendment to the city charter that would increase public participation and avoid surprises when the city government intends to take park land for major roads. The amendment would require voter approval before any portion of a park could be converted to public right of way. This would parallel the existing charter provision that requires voter approval before the sale of such land. The League wants to nail down safeguards to require that broad public notification be made whenever the city wants to convert park land to public right of way. (It’s important to distinguish between park drives and public right of way: The League’s proposal would have no effect on the internal drives that serve the parks and are controlled by the city’s Parks and Community Services.)

A right of way through a park would have a wider effect than just the roadway. It would contribute to the noise level and air pollution. A separation would be needed between the roadway and the park to ensure the safety of people using the park. That would effectively isolate park areas on opposite sides of the road, in some cases leaving a strip of unusable land. In short, the impact of a thoroughfare would be considerably greater than that caused by the smaller roads that serve the parks themselves.

In response to our concerns, the city attorney has said that the current public hearing process on proposed roadways provides adequate provision for citizen comment. We disagree. The League feels that the wider public participation and the more binding mandate provided by an election is necessary in the case of an irreversible encroachment on park land. Some claim that we already have “so many elections” and that the expected low voter turnout would not be worth the cost. Well, even the lowest turnout for an election is greater than the turnout for public hearings.

Whether or not the city charter is changed, the League is asking the city council to find ways to get the word out more broadly when loss of park land is at stake in road construction. Even without the charter amendment, we believe the council could require that the Parks and Community Services Advisory Board, all neighborhood groups, and any other groups that request it be notified of such proposals by e-mail.

Furthermore, we believe Fort Worth must go beyond protecting the park land it now has. We are also asking that provisions be added to the city’s master plan to safeguard existing parks and to acquire more park areas.

The city council has already proposed an election next year to get voter approval of other charter changes. We think this item should be added to the list and, if it is, that voters should support it. Our greenspace is precious, and we are the only ones who can protect it.

Pat Cheong is president of the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County.

Developing World Is Our Toxic Techno Trash Dumpster

Written by

gpexportAustin Chronicle
Daniel Mottola

Each month, hundreds of shipments of electronic waste exported from the U.S. and Europe to developing countries for supposed reuse and repair are actually dumped and often burned in unregulated conditions, releasing an array of toxic contaminants and creating a potential environmental disaster, according to a report released last week by worldwide e-waste watchdog Basel Action Network, in conjunction with Austin’s Texas Campaign for the Environment.

In the port city of Lagos, Nigeria, investigators found computers with ID tags from the cities of Houston and San Antonio, among many other sources across the U.S. and Europe. The report and accompanying video, “The Digital Dump: Exporting High-Tech Re-use and Abuse to Africa,” alleges that U.S. recyclers sell or donate the equipment to developing countries as a way of skirting costly domestic recycling regulations. In Lagos, while there is a healthy market for repairing and refurbishing old computers, cell phones, televisions, and other electronic equipment, local experts say as much as 75% of the imports – roughly 400,000 computers or monitors each month – are not economically repairable and are being discarded and routinely burned, according to the report.

E-waste can contain an array of toxic materials, including lead, mercury, cadmium, barium, beryllium, and brominated flame retardants (similar to PCBs outlawed in the 1970s) – some of which become many times more hazardous when burned. More than 63 million computers in the United States will become obsolete in 2005, according to a New York Times report.

“Things are completely out of control,” said BAN investigation coordinator Jim Puckett.

Manufacturers have got to get toxic chemicals out of electronic goods, governments have got to start enforcing international law, and we consumers have got to be a lot more careful about what our local ‘recycler’ is really doing. It’s time we all get serious about what is now a tsunami of toxic techno-trash making its way from rich to poorer countries, and start taking some responsibility.”

Following the release of “The Digital Dump,” Hugh Miller, with the city of San Antonio Information Technology Department, told San Antonio Current he plans to change the city’s salvaging process so that its computer vendor will be responsible for taking back old computers.

Robin Schneider, Director of Texas Campaign for the Environment and national vice-chair of the Computer TakeBack Campaign, spearheaded successful efforts beginning in 2002 to influence local PC manufacturer Dell to institute producer responsibility programs, keeping their computers from being improperly disposed of. Now, both Dell and Hewlett-Packard have begun taking back obsolete products for safe recycling and disposal.

TCE estimates that computer manufacturers’ failure to take back obsolete products will cost Texas taxpayers $606 million in taxes over 10 years, $41 million in the Austin area alone. The solution, says TCE, are more comprehensive producer take-back initiatives, in which there is a built-in incentive to make electronics that are more recyclable, last longer, and use less toxic material. Advocates are now asking Apple to take back more than the discarded iPods they currently accept.

In 2002, BAN released a similar video and report called “Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia,” drawing attention to unsafe labor conditions and environmental contamination in China and other developing nations. Read the full report at www.ban.org.