Old computers, cell phones and TVs shoved aside by more glamorous gadgets that are incessantly updated -- iPhones, game systems and flat-screens -- have unleashed a growing tide of unwanted electronics.
But these e-waste castoffs contain toxins, among them lead, mercury and arsenic. They can poison groundwater or pollute the air when products are dumped in landfills or burned in incinerators.
So, over the past few years, 11 of Long Island's 13 towns have entered into contracts with "e-cyclers" that cart away hundreds of tons of computers and other junk that would otherwise be thrown out. In 2005, municipalities in Nassau and Suffolk collected 203.4 tons of household e-waste, about 11 percent of the state total, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
While apparently well-intentioned, the town programs have thrust Long Island into the emerging debate about how to handle used consumer electronics.
No federal or New York State law prohibits residents from blithely tossing their old TVs and PCs in landfills. Despite official enthusiasm for e-cycling programs, neither the federal Environmental Protection Agency nor the DEC regulates how most consumer electronics are recycled, or tracks where the goods end up after collection.
What happens after it leaves
With few rules in place, environmental advocates worry that unscrupulous companies are exporting potentially hazardous waste to developing nations where environmental regulations are comparatively lax.
Most Long Island municipal waste managers said they set up e-waste programs to ensure that the products were disposed of in ways that did not harm the environment. "Until a national approach is crafted, this material is coming in, so we need to do the right thing," said Russ Barnett, environmental protection director for the town of Smithtown.
Electronics recycling is booming. Trace Feinstein, president of E-Scrap Destruction in Islandia, got into the field after customers of his document-shredding business kept asking about it. "Most people really don't know what to do with these things," he said. "We take in a lot of PCs, hard drives, cell phones. Anything with a battery or cord."
Nationally, used electronics make up less than 2 percent of the municipal waste stream, the EPA says. Between 80 to 85 percent of that e-waste -- 1.5 to 1.9 million tons -- is simply discarded.
Trend looks up for e-trash
With some estimates saying that Americans have 180 million computers and TVs in storage at home, experts expect steady growth in both the volume of electronic waste and the percentage that is recycled or reused. Also, the planned 2009 conversion from analog to digital TV broadcast signals is also expected to spur more discards.
In the town of Oyster Bay, a recent e-cycling event had residents lined up 15 minutes before it began.
"These days, we're upgrading practically every two or three years," Lenny Stein, 55, of Greenvale, said as he unloaded an Apple monitor. "I will not throw stuff like that in the garbage. My kids would kill me."
In the past few years, federal and some state environmental agencies have promoted e-cycling with public awareness campaigns and dangled incentives for local governments to set up their own programs. In New York, the 32 municipalities that collect residential e-waste qualify for funding grants of up to 50 percent from the state.
Journey of reclaimed items
"From our point of view, there is valuable material in electronics, and there are enormous energy and greenhouse gas benefits from recovering the materials in the electronics and putting them back into use again," said Matt Hale, director of EPA's Office of Solid Waste.
The journey for e-waste begins at places like E-Scrap Destruction. At the company's Islandia warehouse on a recent day, a computer keyboard, two banged-up speakers and a desktop PC tower traveled up a shuddering conveyor belt.
Part of a 6,500-pound haul from the Oyster Bay event, the discards dropped into a 16-foot-tall shredder amid furious noise. Jagged chunks emerged on a belt bound for another grinder, which rained smaller chips down into open boxes.
The material would then be shipped from E-Scrap to a plant near Toronto to be pulverized and separated into tiny chips of recyclable copper, aluminum and plastic, Feinstein said.
That's just one option. Your "e-cycled" desktop PC could also get refurbished and resold domestically or abroad. It could get taken apart and its commodities scattered to scrap buyers across the world. Or it could end up in a container destined for countries such as Ghana. National Geographic reported this month that young boys with no safety equipment were hacking open electronics there and tossing discarded parts in a nearby lagoon.
The EPA classifies e-waste from industrial sources as hazardous waste subject to regulation under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. But absent a congressional mandate on used residential electronics, the agency generally considers it part of the municipal garbage stream. Hale says the EPA is working with manufacturers and recyclers to set up voluntary guidelines to cover such issues as the recyclables' final resting place.
Nine states have enacted some form of electronics recycling law. Few go as far as European Union provisions that oblige manufacturers to recycle the old electronics they built and phase out toxic materials in new products.
New York State now requires cell phone companies to accept used phones at no charge for reuse, recycling or environmentally sound disposal. But bills aiming to extend such "take-back" provisions to all electronics have failed to pass the State Legislature.
Some advocates are concerned that the regulatory vacuum has fostered a one-way flow of obsolete electronics to Asia, Africa and India. Activists estimate 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons collected for recycling each year in North America ends up overseas, said Sarah Westervelt, e-waste project coordinator for Basel Action Network, a Seattle group that works to prevent global trade in hazardous waste.
Companies such as E-Scrap and Supreme Computer and Electronics Recycling, the New Jersey company that handles e-waste for six Long Island towns, say their domestic operations are safe; Supreme said it exports scrap only to reputable overseas outlets.
Most Long Island municipalities assume recyclers dispose of the material responsibly based on such assurances, or on a firm's compliance with general state and federal regulations.
The state of New Jersey lists Supreme as an approved dismantler of consumer electronics. "The extent of our due diligence was the fact that they are a New Jersey firm and what they do there meets federal and New Jersey requirements," said Brookhaven waste commissioner John Kowalchyk.
Charlie McFadden, the firm's vice president of business development, said Supreme workers dismantle most used electronics by hand, then bale the commodities they find and sell them for scrap across the world. "In India right now, they are making a lot of batteries, so right now they chase lead," McFadden said. One customer has a factory in Brazil where cathode ray tubes get turned into new flat-screen CRTs, he said.
But even companies that intend to recycle ethically face constraints once electronic waste leaves the United States, said e-cycling veteran Ed Campbell.
Campbell worked at Per Scholas, a Bronx nonprofit that refurbished old computers for low-income children and families, then spent four years in marketing at Supreme before leaving last year.
"Supreme went through a lot of hoops and spent ... hundreds of thousands of dollars on permitting and putting systems in place," Campbell said. "The reality is, what does that really mean? ... We didn't have the ability to send employees over to audit companies in China."
Having consistent domestic electronic recycling standards would "protect not just our workers and our citizens, but those in every country," Westervelt said. She said the lack of federal laws has resulted in a patchwork of local responses.
On Long Island, most towns collect used electronics at household hazardous waste events where residents bring in paint cans and motor oil. Some park a Dumpster at the town transfer station; Smithtown offers curbside computer pickup.
Assemb. William Colton (D-Brooklyn), who sponsored the state cell phone bill, said he would prefer to see a federal solution to the dilemma. In the meantime, he and Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst), who chairs the assembly's environment committee, plan to reintroduce a version of his failed e-cycling legislation.
"We have spoken with the governor's office, and they are interested in doing something on it," Colton said. "There has to be some sharing by the manufacturers and the retailers who have a role to play in this. Otherwise, when the television breaks, people just throw them out and buy a new one."
Created and Maintained by PTH Associates, Inc. Copyright E-Scrap Destruction 2008
