E-Waste: Still Polluting After All These Years

While companies trumpet carbon-neutrality and introduce greener computers and other electronics, what about all the used, discarded, broken older electronics that aren't so green, that we consumptive Americans (and others) want to get rid of. Well, they usually end up in other countries.

A report (.PDF) issued Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) trumpets on its cover that "Harmful U.S. Exports Flow Virtually Unrestricted Because of Minimal EPA Enforcement and Narrow Regulation."

The key findings:

• Existing EPA regulations focus only on CRTs. Other exported used electronics flow virtually unrestricted, even to countries where they can be mismanaged, in large part because relevant U.S. hazardous waste regulations assess only how products will react in unlined U.S. landfills.
  

• Companies easily circumvent EPA’s CRT rule. Posing as foreign buyers of broken CRTs in Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, and other countries, GAO found 43 U.S. companies that expressed willingness to export such CRTs. Some of the companies, including ones that publicly tout their exemplary environmental practices, were willing to export CRTs in apparent violation of the CRT rule. GAO provided EPA with the names of these companies at EPA’s request.

• EPA’s enforcement is lacking. Since the CRT rule took effect in January 2007, Hong Kong officials intercepted and returned to U.S. ports 26 containers of illegally exported CRTs. EPA has since penalized one violator, and then only long after the shipment was identified by GAO.

Worse, the report found (and it's not surprising) that electronics exported from the United States to many Asian countries are dismantled using methods like open-air incineration and acid baths to extract metals such as copper and gold. Great for the environment.

Options for the EPA listed in the report included:

1. expanding hazardous waste regulations to cover other exported used electronics;
2. submitting a legislative package to Congress for ratifying the Basel Convention, an international regime governing the import and export of hazardous wastes; and
   
3. working with Customs and Border Protection and other agencies to improve identification and tracking of exported used electronics.

While EPA data says that 3,000 tons of electronics is discarded in the U.S. every day, that's nothing compared to the 30 million tons of total solid waste produced in the U.S. each day. Of course, one might say that despite the fact it's only 1/10,000 of the total waste produced, it's almost certainly the most toxic part of it.

What's going to happen now? While consumers can do their part by recycling rather than trashing electronics, that's exactly the e-waste that ends up overseas. It seems only the "r" word (regulation) would really make a difference.