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PLEDGE IMPROVES POOR ELECTRONIC RECYCLING
PRACTICES
By Erica Hoff
The materials inside computers may be harmful to your health.
This week, 16 electronic recycling firms signed a pledge to uphold stricter environmental and social criteria for recycling electronic waste.
The pledge, called the “Electronic Recycler’s Pledge of True Stewardship,” was inspired by the surprising results of a report by Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) and Basel Action Network (BAN), called “Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia,” which was released last year.
The report revealed that 50 to 80 percent of e-wastes collected for recycling in the United States was being sent to poorer countries such as China, India, or Pakistan. There the wastes are handled in a toxic and polluting manner, or simply dumped into the environment. This threatens surrounding areas and may result in disease.
Some Americans agree that more consumers and businesses need to recycle responsibly and dispose of the waste safely.
Jennifer Turley, an environmental science teacher at H.B. Thompson Middle School in Syosset, NY believes that our country has been improperly disposing of all kinds of waste for years.
“The United States produces 80 percent of the world's garbage, yet we only represent about 5 percent of the world's people. We always want bigger and better and when we are done using something we usually just throw it away. The recycling program in the United States is barely existent”, said Turley. “Our companies make products that will break and are not long-term, this will guarantee that the buyer will eventually have to replace the item.”
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States generates more e-waste than any other nation. More than 4.6 million tons entered U.S. landfills in 2000, and the amount was projected to grow four times in the coming years.The companies that signed the pledge agreed to “prevent hazardous e-waste from going to municipal incinerators or landfills; prevent the export of hazardous e-waste to developing countries; and use free market rather than prison labor to dismantle or recycle e-waste.”
Environmentalists agree the pledge is making a much-needed improvement regarding the unsafe recycling practices.
Bill Doolittle, an environmental science professor at Marist College, is hopeful about the future with the new pledge.
“I believe the pledge will promote safer methods of recycling of electronic wastes. There has been little regulation of some waste companies in our country and the waste is shipped overseas, where the regulations are even less, said Doolittle. “ I would like to see processing where the materials can be recycled and put to good use.”
“We also are a population that covets all new items and discards the old items at the first sign of being obsolete,” said Turley . “The attitude of the companies that we run reflect our own utter disregard for the environment. I think that the American people have to first be educated on the harms that we are causing to ourselves, to others, and to the environment before more companies will take action. What we don't know is actually hurting us.”