[FreeGeek] Today on Slashdot: British Columbia To Charge Recycling Fee

[ifny]

Just so folks know, the Neoseeker article that is mentioned in the
Slashdot story pulls heavily from an article that came out in the
Richmond View. According to B.A.N., Sarah Westervelt was heavily
misquoted in that article. Their open letter to the editor is below:


Letter to Editor of Richmond Review from the Basel Action Network
 
Dear Editor,
 
Your July 14, 2007 article, Is new e-waste recycling program green
enough?  unfortunately misrepresented  some of our thoughts and concerns
about BCs new electronic waste program, while not properly explaining
them. We are a Seattle-based global environmental group working to
prevent the trade in toxic wastes to developing countries, and have
become very active regarding e-waste recycling due to the massive
amounts that are irresponsibly exported off-shore. 
 
We applaud British Columbias efforts to collect and responsibly recycle
electronic waste.  This difficult waste stream is complex and full of
toxins, and many countries simply export it to developing countries,
where it is having horrific impacts on human health and the environment,
in many cases.  Our understanding of the BC program is that it will not
allow these toxic materials to be exported, which we whole-heartedly
support.
 
However, there are other ways to be irresponsible, and we are concerned
that equipment collected by the program will not be made available for
reuse, refurbishment, and re-purposing, and furthermore, the entire
e-waste stream may possibly go straight to metal smelters.   This latter
practice is not supportable as it fails to maximize the longevity of
used electronics, and also fails to reclaim the maximum amount of
recyclable plastics. At the same time, highly toxic dioxins and furans
can be created as a result of burning the plastics, not to mention the
greenhouse gases exacerbating climate change.
 
Instead, as a first priority, unwanted electronics should be directed to
the reuse market, and remarketed after diligent repair, testing and
labeling.   Then the remaining end-of-life equipment that cannot be
repaired or reused should be manually or mechanically separated into the
various recyclable fractions, instead of simply throwing whole equipment
directly into a smelter.  Smelters are absolutely necessary for the
recovery of metals but it is not appropriate to throw plastics in the
mix simply because one can, even when energy is recovered.  The argument
that the plastics help supply fuel for the smelter does not justify this
practice given the very low heat value from this source combined with
the emissions of toxic substances and green-house gases.  Even though
most toxic emissions are captured in modern facilities, there are always
hazardous waste residues remaining when processing toxic materials.
 
Finally, British Columbia has chosen a financing mechanism, an advanced
recycling fee, which will provide funding to properly manage the
e-waste, but unfortunately will not place the responsibility primarily
on electronic manufacturers for the impacts of the entire life cycle of
their products, as is now practiced in Europe.  Thus, the BC system will
not provide manufacturers with an economic incentive to phase out toxins
and design their products for easy recycling.  The ultimate solution to
this problematic waste stream is to redesign products with safer
materials, and manufacturers are best positioned to accomplish this if
they have to own their products when they become waste!  We hope this
clarifies our position regarding our concerns over the BC Electronic
waste recycling legislation. 
 
Sarah Westervelt
e-Waste Project Coordinator
Basel Action Network
122 S. Jackson St., Suite 320
Seattle, WA 98104
206 652-5555
www.ban.org
swestervelt at ban.org  
 

  


On Sun, 2007-29-07 at 16:09 -0700, agent humble wrote:
> An anonymous reader writes "Next week the province of British Columbia will 
> begin adding a recycling fee to new computers and TVs to pay for their free 
> electronics recycling program. The list of what is acceptable for recycling 
> is short, namely computers, printers, and TVs — you cannot recycle personal 
> audio players or cell phones. What is unclear is whether the definition 
> of 'desktop computer' includes self-built computers, and if so, their plans 
> for adding fees for individual components such as motherboards, etc." The 
> article notes that the recovered e-waste will not be sent to developing 
> countries for processing. But one report says that the e-waste won't be 
> recycled at all, but rather burned in a smelter. 
> 
> Article, links and comments: 
> http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/28/193210
> _______________________________________________
> http://freegeekvancouver.org
> 'Helping the needy get nerdy since the beginning of the 3rd millennium'
> https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freegeek-van