Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
will only enable that process.
29
Unless growth itself is challenged, the social and environ-
mental ills activists bemoan will likely remain and worsen. For example, 'Given that the
amount of WEEE [waste from electronics goods] is set to double by 2010, this means that
the same amount now being disposed of to land
fi
ll and incineration may continue,' Gary
Gri
ths, environmental manager for RDC, a computer refurbisher in the UK, stated. 'We
don't want any excuse for member states to be justi
ed in increasing incinerator capacity,
which is a long-term commitment and will divert funding from recycling,' Melissa Shinn
of the European Environment Bureau noted.
30
Indeed, some have argued that the focus
on recycling may be misguided because there is little sense in collecting volumes of recy-
cled material unless there is a tax incentive or a legal obligation to use it. A perverse e
fi
ect
of the WEEE directive is that, as more material is collected for recycling, it may create a
greater demand to export e-waste illegally to southern economies for dirty recycling. This
is exactly what has happened with bans on e-waste in land
ff
fi
lls - intended to encourage e-
waste recycling - in the USA.
European nations have signed the Basel Ban on toxic waste exports - the USA. refuses
to do so - but there are doubts as to whether it is being enforced. Since Europe agreed to
stop exports, the BAN team has been back to China and reports that, while most e-waste
comes from the USA, it is still '
owing out of Europe'. BAN suspects that European
waste more often ends up in India and Pakistan. 'So much harm has come under the green
passport of recycling. Whenever someone says that word, it has the e
fl
ect of making
people swoon and think that everything is going to be lovely,' Jim Puckett stated.
31
Thus,
as a result of the WEEE, 'ecological protection' in the global North may occur hand in
hand with environmental injustice in the global South, as policies like this often shift
hazards to poor nations.
Recently, environmental justice and labor rights activist networks such as the ICRT and
CTBC (Computer TakeBack Campaign) have succeeded in pushing several states in the
USA (Maine, Washington, California and Maryland), the EU, and companies such as
Lenovo, Dell, H-P and Compaq, and even the entire University of California system to
enact policies that: reduce toxic inputs in production processes; ensure a takeback of elec-
tronics at the end of life in order to recycle them; prohibit the use of prison labor for recy-
cling; and prevent the export of these materials to other nations.
It might be said that electronics takeback systems constitute this social movement's
success at institutionalizing a 'return to sender' policy among corporations and govern-
ments. While activists
ff
ghting other forms of transnational waste trading and dumping
(e.g. municipal and agricultural wastes) have had to literally send the waste back to its
nation of origin, it appears that e-waste activists have adopted another tactic: takeback
systems that recycle products at the end of life.
But a state-by-state, company-by-company approach to environmental responsibility
for our e-waste has created a patchwork of solutions that will soon become unwieldy and
cumbersome for consumers, government and industry. These are positive signs, but alone
they will never move us toward sustainability as a nation.
As local governments around the USA have seen this new waste-disposal problem
emerging, they have begun to sound the alarm. Governments have taken on the burden
until now, but states and municipalities are arguing that corporations should bear more
of the costs. Michael Alexander, a senior research associate with the National Recycling
Coalition of Alexandria, Virginia, points out, 'The question being raised everywhere is:
fi
