Trashed

Ever wonder where the cell phone or computer you toss endsup? Our writer follows her own digital detritus to the far ends of the earth.

By Ellen Ruppel Shell

Originally printed in the Audubon Magazine

My basement is a mausoleum of sorts, cluttered withmemorabilia harking back to childhood. Deep in its depths, behind the sportsequipment and long-forgotten board games, lurks a jumble of electronicgadgetryÑcomputers, monitors, and printersÑthat for me have outlived theirusefulness. These are formidable objects, hefty machines that I know, instinctively,do not belong in the trash. So the pile remains, trapped in a twilight zonebetween desktop and dump, a sorry reminder of the power of MooreÕs Law.

Gordon Moore, a cofounder of Intel Corporation, famouslyobserved more than 40 years ago that computer processing power doubles everytwo years, the corollary being that all the machines suddenly rendered half aspowerful as the current standard are on an inexorable march towardobsolescence. In the United States alone, an estimated 197 million computersmade this trek between 2000 and 2005, according to the InternationalAssociation of Electronics Recyclers. But computers are only one tributaryfeeding this torrent of Òe-waste.Ó Every year Americans ÒretireÓ an estimated130 million cell phones and untold tons of printers, copiers, keyboards, mice,portable media players, VCRs, scanners, and digital cameras.

While some of this detritus languishes in attics andbasements, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that eachyear about two million tons of it are dumped and left to fall apart and leaktheir toxic innards across the landscape. Discarded electronics comprise 70percent of heavy metal contamination in the nationÕs landfills, a horrifyingthought for anyone who worries about public health. The international prospectis even more daunting, though also hopeful, as I was to observe during my10,000-mile journey on the e-waste trail through Europe and China. But before Ileft, I decided to take a look at the problem closer to home.

The dumping of e-waste has grown into such an environmentaldisaster that I tried to ignore the tangle of computers and printers hiding inthe basement, where at least they could do no harm. But when I learned I couldunload the stuff safely not far from my home in Newton, Massachusetts, Idutifully excavated an ancient IBM desktop and drove it to a nearby ÒtransferstationÓ for recycling. An attendant pointed me to a room-sized containercrammed nearly to the roof with outdated electronics. I wedged my machine amongthe other castoffs and silently pledged to return the following week with therest of the electronic junk lurking in my basement. Doing good had never beenso easy.

In truth I had no idea where that computer was headed. WhenI asked Elaine Gentile, director of NewtonÕs Division of Environmental Affairs,she seemed surprised. Apparently not many people concern themselves with thetrajectory of their abandoned electronics. Gentile told me my computer waslikely en route to the Massachusetts headquarters of CRT Recycling Inc., acompany that trucks roughly 20 tons of discarded computers, television sets,and other electronics out of my small city every month.

CRT Recycling is housed in a low-slung, ramshackle buildingwhose entrance seems to be a secret. It took me some time to find the door, andwhen I did and walked inside it was clear why sign-age was not a priorityÑtheplace was cavernous, cacophonous, strewn with junk, and definitely not fortourists. General manager Peter Kopcych waved me into the relative quiet of hisoffice. A compact yet burly man, he wore a sweatshirt that bore the mark of onetoo few launderings. Kopcych rose from behind his desk and gathered a smallentourage of employees to escort me on a tour.

Walking deep into the din we came to an open area raucouswith salsa music and littered with cardboard boxes the size of Shetland ponies.Kopcych buys these ÒgaylordsÓ for three bucks apiece from truckers haulingproduce from the West Coast. His workers peel out the wilted lettuce leaves,line the boxes with protective plastic, and fill them with wire, gears, plasticparts, printers, keyboards, computers, battery packs, and broken glass fromcathode ray tubes. As we chatted a virtual United Nations of recyclingentrepreneurs filed by: A two-man team rummaged a hillock of computer printers,yanking out the ink cartridges to refill at their Rhode Island factory and sellon the secondhand market. A pair of Haitian dealers combed through a pile oftelevision sets, culling the best ones for sale in their home country. A coupleof guys from the Dominican Republic clipped compressors from a lineup ofrusting refrigerators. This was low-hanging fruit, parts that can be readilyrefurbished and resold at a profit. But the bulk of KopcychÕs booty getsshipped to the developing world.

Thirteen years ago more than 62 nations agreed to a ban onthe export of hazardous wasteÑincluding electronic wasteÑfrom wealthy to lesswealthy countries. Since then several more countries have signed on, but somemajor playersÑCanada, Australia, and the United States among themÑhave notratified the ban, and it does not yet wield the force of law. Thisfoot-dragging, environmentalists complain, has stalled reform. ÒFree and easyexport of waste to the developing world is killing incentives for Americanrecyclers to do the right thing,Ó says Jim Puckett, coordinator of the BaselAction Network, an environmental advocacy group. ÒAmericans are less willing toinvest in change because itÕs so cheap to simply ship waste abroad and soprofitable to poison the poor.Ó

Kopcych insists he is poisoning no one. For example, hesays, he used to ship glass yanked from cathode ray tubes (CRTs) by workerswearing face masks and Kevlar gloves to Òa beautiful facilityÓ in Brazil, wherea factory recycled it into new CRTs for the South American market. Now he sendsit to facilities in Malaysia or India. More than half the weight of a CRT is intwo layers of glass, one coated with barium oxide, melted in, one with lead.Barium oxide is an irritant to lungs and skin; lead, a deadly neurotoxin. Noone wants either poison leaching into the soil orÑworseÑthe groundwater, and in2000 Massachusetts became the first state to ban CRTs from landfills.California and then seven other states have since followed suit. In thesestates, CRTs must either be reused or dismantled, their component parts oftendealt with individually or disposed of outside of the stateÕs borders.

So reuse sounds like a good option. But environmentalistsworry about passing off leaded glass to the developing world, where it couldleach into the soil or water supply. They worry, too, about all the other bitsKopcych and his fellow recyclers ship to parts of the world where face masksand Kevlar gloves are in short supply.

Electronics contain exotic metals, many of them toxic tohumans. In addition, the mining of these metals has wreaked havoc and despairacross the landscapes of many countries. ÒForty-five percent of all toxicsproduced by industry in the U.S. comes from mining,Ó says Robin Ingenthron,founder of Good Point, a recycling company in Vermont. ÒAnd itÕs even worse insome other countries.Ó A few years ago the mining of coltan, an essentialingredient in cell phones, was linked to the slaughter of eastern gorillas inthe Congo. In the countryÕs Kahuzi Biega National Park, the gorilla populationwas cut to nearly a quarter of what it was 14 years ago as miners deforestedthe land, rebels occupied the area, and hunters targeted the animals thatsurvived as bush meat. Though the coltan rush has abated for now (thanks to adecline in price), mining could still pose a serious threat to the regionÕswildlife.

Electronics recycling can reduce this problem, as valuableminerals, instead of being wrenched out of the ground, are extracted from oldmachines and reused. Such ÒminingÓ of electronics can be extremely profitable:Each ton of cell phones contains more than 12 ounces of gold, nearly 8 poundsof silver, and 286 pounds of copper. Circuit boards contain more gold by volume than does gold ore. Smeltersin Europe and Canada can melt components at super-high temperatures to extractlead, copper, and other elements. These facilities are held to strictenvironmental and health standards, and the one I visited in Belgium, UmicorePrecision Metal Refining, is an efficient and well-run place. The company, theworldÕs largest precious metal recycler, extracts silver, gold, and 15 othermetals from tons of cell phones, circuit boards, and other abandonedelectronics. ÒItÕs an environmental challenge but also a resource opportunity,Óa Umicore scientist told me. ÒSmelting electronics reduces the need for mining,reduces the risk of toxic metals leaking into the environment, and is also goodbusiness.Ó

Unfortunately, only five such smelters exist in the worldfor e-scrap, none of them in the United States, and their services do not comecheap. Which helps explain why roughly 80 percent of ÒrecycledÓ electronics inthis country are shipped to poor nations with lackluster or poorly enforcedenvironmental and health regulations.

Electronic waste harbors roughly half of all the elements onthe periodic table, from arsenic to zinc. Left unchecked, these toxins cancause enormous damage, especially in poor countries with no or littleenvironmental remediation. The dumping of electronic trash is proliferatingbadly in Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Africa, India, Bangladesh, and especiallyChina.

China is ravenous for raw materials, and there are hundredsof thousands of hands there willing and able to mine metal and plastic from thedetritus of wealthier nations. The country technically banned the importationof electronic waste in 2002, but a trip last year to the booming port city ofTaizhou, about 150 miles south of Shanghai, gave ample evidence that the banlacks teeth. With 5.5 million citizens, Taizhou is midsized by Chinesestandards, but to a Western eye it seems crowded beyond imagination. The cityis famous throughout China for its honey-sweet Mandarin oranges, cultivated byfarmers for more than 1,700 years. But the day I arrived it was hard to imaginethat any tree could blossom in the eye-stinging smog that had turned thelate-autumn morning into gloomy dusk. I was met at the airport by a man IÕllcall Chen, a science teacher at the local middle school who for years has wagedan intrepid but quiet investigation into the dumping of e-trash in his city.Chen asked that I keep his real name and that of his school private. He had asix-year-old son, he said, and was worried about retribution.

Chen did not own a car, so we hired a cab to follow theearly morning traffic to TaizhouÕs main port area, where ships from all over theworld were unloading cargo. Containers packed with scrap from Japan, Korea, andthe United States were opened and shoveled into the beds of dilapidated trucks.They drove onto an enormous lot and dumped their loads, where bulldozersscraped rubble into piles two to three stories high. Entrepreneurs examined thepiles, bid on them, and scooped their purchases into more open trucks. The roadfrom the port was thick with these vehicles, some with great lengths of copperwire dragging behind like tails, shooting sparks. We followed this convoy tothe recycling processing zone, where workers in bamboo lean-tos dismantled andsorted the debris. They used sharp, fire-honed chisels to pry metal from metal,and wore no protective gear to shield their eyes from flying bits. There weresmall children working here, but also playing; a runny-nosed toddler dragged adiscarded vacuum cleaner by its cord like a pull toy.

Most of the workshops were open, but a few were hidden byhigh bamboo walls. Peering around these walls we found a stretch of laminatedfolding tables cluttered with electronic parts. About 20 men and women stoodbehind the tables, hammering, prying, and twisting, breaking off bits, andsorting them into baskets. I asked a well-dressed man who appeared to be theowner which of these parts brought the most profit. He told me the circuitboards, which contained precious metals.

As we left the workshop, Chen pointed to the remains of alittle lake that had been partially filled in to make way for this Òrecyclingvillage.Ó Two women washed clothes as their children played in the stream of anoutlet pipe. The water was slimy black. ÒThe lake is very polluted now, becauseof all of the processing,Ó Chen said. Later that day we drove to ChenÕs school,where he showed me photographs of frogs that his students had fished out ofthat lake. The frogs were mutantsÑeach had a leg missing.

Many of the laborers harvesting electronics in Taizhou wereonce farmers from western regions of the country who migrated in search ofwork. In the recycling village, I spoke with a woman of about 30 wearing theclassic conical hat still popular among Asian farm workers but oddly out ofplace here. She was unraveling strands of copper wire the thickness of adarning thread from a heavy braided cable. The woman and her family can make 50yuanÑabout $7.14Ñin a 12-hour day, an excellent wage in a region where vendorssell bowls of noodles for 20 cents. Behind her a clutch of men were roastingsomething over an open brazier. Though they blocked our view, we caught a whiffof burning plastic, almost certainly insulation being singed from the copperwire. These casings contain lead and other toxics that when burned escape indangerous fumes. None of the workers wore face masks or any other protectivegear.

A spate of bad publicity embarrassing to the Chinesegovernment was partially responsible for forcing a shift of the most dangerouswork out of the recycling villages into the hills an hourÕs drive away. Hereworkers fried circuit boards in wok-like pans, melting the plastic and leadsolder to free the precious chips. The solder was reportedly collected for saleto metal dealers, and the chips picked off for reuse or dipped into bucketsfilled with acid to extract their goldÑthereÕs as much as 220 milligrams ofgold in a single desktop computer. Gold is extracted using an ancient techniquecalled aqua regia, from the Latin Òroyal water,Ó a witchesÕ brew of one partconcentrated nitric acid and three to four parts concentrated hydrochloric acid.Fumes wafted over the worktables, likely carrying chlorine and sulfur dioxide,corrosive to exposed skin, lungs, and eyes. Waste liquid was dumped on theground or into a nearby water supply.

Puckett told me that in Africa the trade in electronic wasteis robust but somewhat different than it is in Asia. ÒA huge, uncontrolledelectronics trade is hitting every major port city of Africa,Ó he said. ÒButAfrica has no infrastructure to deal with recycling, so they arenÕt in it formaterials recovery.Ó Non-functioning electronics are simply dumped on theground or into the water.

Sadly, what some call the Òeffluence of our affluenceÓ isendangering those who can least protect themselves. But this need not be thecase. As the people of Switzerland have amply demonstrated, littering the worldwith our castoffs is not only unethical; in an era of quickly depletingresources, it is unwise.

Switzerland is a small country with few mineral resourcesand a scarcity of land. Landfills here are not an option. This helps explainwhy in 1991 Switzerland became the first country in EuropeÑand the worldÑtoimplement a federally regulated e-waste recycling program.Rolf Widmer, anengineer at EMPA, a material testing and research institute partially supportedby the Swiss government, offered to guide me through his countryÕs elaborateelectronics recycling labyrinth. Our first stop was a collection station on theoutskirts of St. Galen, a charming Swiss city once known for its textiles.Christoph Solenthaler, co-owner with his brother of Solenthaler Recycling,which this collection station is part of, has a degree in engineering andspeaks elegant, nuanced English. The recycling station was spotless andstrictly organized: red bins for garbage, wood, pottery, plastic, tires, and,of course, skis; green bins for CRTs, TVs, computers, and cell phones. Peoplepay by the pound to use the red bins but can dump all they want for free intothe green ones. ÒThis is because they pay an advanced recycling fee on thegreen items,Ó Widmer explained. Later, in town, I visited a department storeand checked: The recycling tax on a large flat-screen television was sevenSwiss francs, or about seven dollars.

I asked Solenthaler where the flat screens were headed andhe scowled. Flat screens, he said, were a vexing problem, in that it was nearlyimpossible to dismantle them without breaking the tubes and releasing thedeadly mercury. The tubes are incinerated but he was not happy about thisÑhewould prefer they were made without mercury. ÒFor too many manufacturers costis the driver, not concern for the environment,Ó he said.

We left the station and headed toward a dismantling facilityhoused in an abandoned textile factory a few miles down the road. Esin Isik,the 29-year-old manager, opened a box of copy machine parts. They were spankingnew but slightly outdated, and the manufacturers wanted them destroyed toprevent them from being sold illegally for reuse. ÒWe call it Christmas when weget this new stuff,Ó Isik told me, prying open another box with well-manicuredfingers. I had no idea what she planned to do with the loot, maybe hang it onher holiday tree. I had seen many such boxes in dismantling centers in theUnited States, and I wondered whether this was part of what Kopcych meant whenhe talked about money being Òleft on the table.Ó The waste was staggering.

At least the parts would not contribute to the worldÕsburgeoning high-tech-trash debacle. In Switzerland 98 percent of electronicwaste is recycled or incinerated to produce energy in clean-burning factoriesfitted with scrubbers to prevent air pollution. In St. Galen alone this energyheats 10,000 homes. Peter Bornand, former chairman of the EnvironmentalCommission of the Swiss Association for Information, Communication andOrganizational Technology, told me that the Swiss have always been conscious oftheir trash, and their natural resources. ÒWe are a small country with noaccess to the sea and no raw materials,Ó he said. ÒThe problem in the UnitedStates is that you believe your resources are endless.Ó

In the European Union, waste from electric and electronic equipment(or WEEE) accounts for roughly eight percent of all waste on the continent. Butthe EU is addressing the problem with legislation that bans certain toxics fromelectronics, and an initiative that requires electronics manufacturers to takeback from consumers their used and outdated equipment and dispose of it in aresponsible manner. The WEEE Initiative didnÕt take hold until January 2007,but several European countries began taking steps to deal with electronic wastelong before this.

In a global economy hungry for natural resources, it hasbecome increasingly clear that recycling is more energy efficient, safer, andmore economical than many of its alternatives, especially mining. In the UnitedStates, a budding awareness of the inherent value of electronic components hascontributed to the explosive growth in electronics recycling. Cell phonesÑwhichcontain about 60 centsÕ worth of precious metal eachÑcan now be Òbought back,Óor traded in for new phones, though this is not yet a common practice. Andconcerns with computer security and the environment have caused some businessesto insist that their discarded machines not leave the country, or end up in alandfill. In the United States there are as yet no national laws or regulationsconcerning the recycling or shipping of electronics, but a handful ofstatesÑCalifornia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, NorthCarolina, Texas, Oregon, and WashingtonÑhave instituted controls, such asforcing producers to take back computers and other electronics for recycling.ItÕs likely that more states and more regulations will follow.

America and the world have a longstanding love affair withtechnology, and few of us can resist the latest gadgets. Thanks to tirelessinnovation, the shelf life of electronics is briefÑthe average cell phone isdiscarded or traded in after about 18 months. Perhaps itÕs time to awaken tothe ugly side of our high-tech habits.

Obviously much work remains to be done. Returning home fromSwitzerland, I saw that Pizza Hut was offering a free cell phone with thepurchase of a large pie. Based on what I had seen in China, I  knew that those cell phones wereanything but free.

 

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

HereÕs how to responsibly get rid of your e-waste.

1. Return to sender. Many computer makers will take back their own monitors, CPUs, mice, keyboards, printers, and speakers at no extra charge to be recycled into new products or donated. Dell, for example, will pay the shipping on all of its computer products and will schedule a pickup time to take them off your handsÑfor free.

2. Find a responsible recycler. The Basel Action Network (BAN) partners with Òe-cyclersÓ that have signed the Electronic RecyclerÕs Pledge of True Stewardship, which outlines the most rigorous criteria for recycling electronics in a socially and environmentally responsible way. BAN offers a list of recyclers by region, some of which accept mailed-in electronics.

3. Trade in. Circuit City offers a program through EZtradein.com that allows you to send in your computers, phones, camcorders, game systems, cameras, and even car audio equipment. YouÕll receive a Circuit City gift card based on the value of the used parts.

4. Trade up. Many cell phone providers will give you the option to recycle your old phone when you purchase a fancy new one with a camera and better ringtones. The unwanted phones are then donated or safely recycled.

5. Drop it off. Staples, Best Buy, Office Depot, and select Fed Express/Kinkos all have areas within their stores to drop of cell phones and ink cartridges. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile will take back their phones, batteries, and accessoriesÑno strings attached.

For additional resources, go to Earth911.org, the EPAÕs ÒPlug-in To eCyclingÓ, or the Electronic Industries Alliance.