USA's trashed TVs, computer monitors can make toxic mess

SEATTLE -- Hong Kong intercepted and returned 41 ship containers to U.S. ports this year because they carried tons of illegal electronics waste from the U.S., according to the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department.

By turning the containers away, Hong Kong thwarted attempts by U.S. companies to dump 1.4 million pounds of broken TVs or computer monitors overseas and an estimated 82,000 pounds of lead, a known toxin, in the devices.

But thousands of other shipments probably slipped through, says Jim Puckett, head of the Basel Action Network, or BAN, a three-employee environmental non-profit that over eight years has become a respected watchdog over the rapidly growing electronics recycling industry.

Puckett expects much more e-waste will be exported from the U.S. once the broadcasting industry switches to digital signals on Feb. 17 and millions of households junk their old analog TV sets.

That's one reason BAN and other activists have ramped up efforts to slow the unfettered export of the USA's e-waste to poorer countries. There are signs they're getting results. Since August, when the Government Accountability Office released a blistering investigative report declaring that exported U.S. e-waste was often disposed of unsafely in countries such as China and India, BAN has received pledges from dozens of electronics recyclers that they won't export. It also has won more support for its ambitious plan to set standards for recyclers so that customers can identify the environmentally responsible ones. Meanwhile, more companies of all kinds — fearful of being exposed as global polluters — are auditing recyclers to make sure they don't export refuse from electronics to poorer countries.

"We are at a tipping point," says Robert Houghton, president of e-waste recycler Redemtech of Ohio, one of the industry's leaders. "More companies recognize that people care about this, and there's a bit more regulatory attention being paid to people defrauding the system."

Puckett, 54, a former Greenpeace worker, was among the first to show U.S. consumers the impact of toxic e-waste on China. In 2001, he traveled to Guiyu, China, with a handheld camera and a Chinese translator. There, he documented tens of thousands of peasants soaking spent electronics in acid baths or burning them in open-air fires to recover the gold, silver and copper within. The rudimentary techniques left behind toxic sludge, air and water. BAN and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition turned his investigation into a film, Exporting Harm, which was distributed throughout the electronics industry and helped publicize the issue.