Common Ground: E-waste, Tech Trash

November 2006

E-waste, Tech Trash

Don’t let yours end up in a landfill...or China

By Todd Spencer

First, it was my still-shiny alabaster laptop that developed narcolepsy—blacking out at some randomly critical moment. Then the stylishly cut Epson that had come with that “free” rebate from the Apple Store had a nervous breakdown and became unable to print in anything but a faint form of Braille.

Like high-tech honeybees, these two marvels of technology had only a fleeting existence: a mere 18 months of buzzing and whirring before they were taken, so soon and so suddenly, by the big angry CPU in the sky.

When they’re not breaking down, as fast as computers, printers, iPods and cell phones can roll off Asian assembly lines, Americans are yanking their older models out of their power strips and tossing them in the garbage. Every year, more electronics are made to service an increasing demand that’s back-fed by obsolescence inherent in design and manufacture specs that keep prices box-store low, low, low! And now electronic devices are the world’s fastest-growing solid waste stream.

Besides not having $1600 to buy a new computer and printer, I had another problem: how to get rid of the shells of my expired iBook and CX4600. It seemed wrong, somehow, to just throw them in the curbside trash bin. And so, since spring, they’ve been piled on my floor. Friends tell me they have similar mini-junkyards in their basements, closets and under their beds.

Turns out our instincts are right. “Tech trash” is toxic waste.

According to Elizabeth Grossman, who penned the eye-opening High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health on Island Press earlier this year, my laptop’s screen is illuminated by mercury, the glass in the screen contains lead and other heavy metals, and polybrominated diphenyl ether—a component of a fire retardant traced from landfills to foods purchased in U.S. supermarkets that disrupts the thyroid and can cause cancer—is in the plastic casings of both my stricken appliances.

Inert in our offices, purses and backpacks, e-waste’s hard metals, gases and chemicals release to the air and water tables once crushed in a landfill.

California Democrats, in step with the muckraking Portland, Ore., author, wrote and passed a law three years ago that make California the first state in the union to outlaw “anything with a cord” from being sent to the dump and implemented a funding mechanism to have electronics diverted from the landfills, collected and recycled.

So, where’s tech trash supposed to go, if not the garbage can?

SB 20: Our Wild West of Recycling

Enter bunches of start-up, independent collectors trying to mine the state’s $0.20/pound goldmine and the likes of “social entrepreneur” John Shegarian, CEO of Electronic Recyclers, a recycler of e-waste a based in Fresno. Shegarian accepts tons of e-waste funneled to him from Bay Area collectors like HMR, and, unlike many e-waste recyclers around the country, his efforts are endorsed by the Basel Action Network (ban.org), a watchdog nonprofit that screens companies for illegal shipments to Asia and Africa. Unbeknownst to most Americans, untold tons of e-waste leave our shores in boatloads for hazardous, unregulated disassembly in the third world, victimizing communities and poisoning whole regions.

Grossman’s book describes in detail these third-world recycling efforts where unprotected foreign workers, including children, smelt circuit boards in pots over open flame without the benefit of gloves or masks and who then, after the precious metals (copper, gold, etc.) are extracted, dump the remaining goop into rivers. This is just on a list of tragic practices.

A suit-and-tied, New York-bred businessman, Shegarian introduced Grossman to the small crowd at her August reading at the Book Passage in the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco. A regular speaker around the state, he’s been raising awareness about the state law, which allows him to make a profit as he ethically shreds and recycles a half-million pounds of e-waste every month. “I speak two or three times a week,” he says, “and only two or three people in a group of 50 will raise their hand when I ask if they know that it’s illegal to put an old computer in the trash.”

Shegarian speaks with some frustration at the state’s marketing effort. The California government recently announced that it’s hired a public relations firm to raise awareness about SB 20. In the meantime, the good news is that 140 million pounds of electronics will be recycled this year in California, the only state in the union with any program at all. The bad news is that 1) the rest of the country is behind, and 2) plenty of tech trash in California still ends up in the dump or worse, illegally shipped to China.

Until a better system comes along (like universal ethical curbside recycling), many have taken their tech trash to “drives” at local concerts, stores or charity events. According to Sarah Westervelt, e-waste project coordinator for the Basel Action Network, if you’re not paying to have your e-waste recycled, the collectors are probably sending it to China or Africa. But in California, thanks to SB 20, laptops, monitors and televisions—anything with a cathode ray tube (CRT)—are exceptions: State consumers pay a $6-$10 Advanced Recycling Fee (ARF) at the front end when we buy from retailers. So, we don’t have to pay on the back end to recycle those three items. Still, the fees that do exist are hardly prohibitive to the individual consumer, who might end up paying a few dollars to turn in a few pounds of keyboards, printers, cell phones and Xboxes.

Westervelt says it’s almost impossible to find out for yourself where a collector is sending the tech trash since no one will tell an inquisitive consumer anything they don’t want to hear. So BAN published a list of responsible collectors and recyclers they’ve audited to the nth degree. Unfortunately, pending funding and more exhaustive auditing capability, almost all BAN-certified collectors and recyclers happen to be situated in SoCal. The lone Bay Area collector who has met their pledge criteria is e-Recycling of California in Hayward. They accept CRT items (TVs, monitors, laptops) for free and charge just $0.15/pound for miscellaneous e-waste.

According to Shegarian, Goodwill is fast becoming a household name for tech trash recycling for consumers like you and me. They have 16 stores spread throughout San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. All accept e-waste items and recycle them ethically, in a partnership with Dell Computer. According to Goodwill, “We refurbish donated items in working order and sell them affordably in our stores or make them available to community groups. Non-working components are broken down and recycled in a safe and environmentally responsible way.” It’s free, convenient and environmentally responsible. Their ReCompute Store sells refurbished computers and electronics at their flagship store at 1580 Mission Street.

After speaking with the Basel Action Network and Shegarian (whose operation is endorsed by Basel), Common Ground can recommend, on unconfirmed anecdotal information, these Bay Area collectors for safe, ethical recycling of your own personal e-waste stream:

East Bay
• Goodwill; Operates 25 stores in Alameda, Contra Costa, and Solano Counties; eastbaygoodwill.org
• e-Recycling of California, 31775 Hayman Ave., Hayward; 510.675.0810; erecyclingofcalifornia.com
• BR Technology, 1501 Zephyr Ave., Hayward; 510.475.5502; brtechnology.com
• Recycle for Breast Cancer, Saf Keep Storage, 200 Purdue Road, San Ramon; 925.735.7203; recycleforbreastcancer.org

San Francisco
• Goodwill; Multiple locations; sfgoodwill.org/reconnect
• HMR, 435 23rd Street; 415.647-6071; hmrgroup.com
• SF Recycling & Disposal; 501 Tunnel Ave.; 415.330-1400; sfrecycling.com
• GreenCitizen, 591 Howard St (at 2nd), 415.287.0000; greencitizen.com

North Bay
• Goodwill; Multiple locations; sfgoodwill.org/reconnect
• Napa Recycling, 820 Levitin Way, Napa; 707.256.3500; naparecycling.com
• Global Materials Recovery, 3899 Santa Rosa Ave., Santa Rosa; 707.585.0511
• Goodwill; Multiple locations; sfgoodwill.org

South Bay
• Goodwill; Operates 15 locations in Silicon Valley area; goodwillsv.org
• GreenCitizen, 4500 El Camino Real, Los Altos; 650.493.8700; greencitizen.com
• Bay Surplus, Incorporated, 1775 Monterey Hwy., Suite 42A, San Jose; 408.298.9909

To get more information on the very complicated, but interesting tech recycling wilderness, visit:
• erecycle.org
and the website of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the state organization that oversees the ARF money:
• ciwmb.ca.gov

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