‘E-cycling’ puts new life in electronic junk

Only a smattering of companies collect old computers and cell phones at no charge. Federal laws still don’t prevent junk haulers from piling loads of unprocessed toxic junk on the doorsteps of developing countries, where it can endanger the environment there.

The Basel network reported in October that as many as 400,000 discarded computers are smuggled to Nigeria each month — about 13,000 a day — sold by U.S. entrepreneurs who collect them for recycling or repair. Much of the equipment ends up incinerated or dumped in empty lots, roadsides or swamps, the report says.

“Export is the escape hatch,” Westervelt said.

Westervelt’s group helped produce the documentary “Exporting Harm,” about a landfill in the southern Chinese city of Guiyu where workers strip down the waste to reclaim copper and other precious metals, leaving behind loads of leaded glass and other toxic material. A water sample taken from the site revealed lead levels 2,400 times higher than the World Health Organization’s limit for drinking water.

Unscrupulous collectors that turn a quick profit by dumping the equipment in other countries instead of safely processing it are undermining the industry, said Nejad, whose company is closely scrutinized because of its contracts with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense.

One solution may be to encourage other countries to properly handle e-junk. Shegerian recently returned from a trade mission to China, where he said officials are considering opening the country’s first major e-cycling center.

Ric Feld / AP Computer hard drives await shredding at Molam International in Marietta, Ga., last week. One million pounds of electronics are recycled in the warehouse each week

In the meantime, old-fashioned capitalism back home is driving companies to cater to massive corporations and government agencies. And smaller businesses have set up shop to help rid individual consumers and smaller companies of e-junk.

In northwest Atlanta, a franchise of Canada-based 1-800-Got-Junk? dispatches a handful of white trucks each day to load up aging electronics from homes and towering high-rises.
Inside the business, mismatched chairs, a faded rug and other salvaged junk furnish the former house where the franchise’s office is located. Just outside, a 1980s-era monitor sits forgotten amid a pile of other computer screens, which will soon be delivered to Nejad’s warehouse.

“You know the old saying, ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle?’” asks Genie Beaver, the franchise owner. “Well, we can’t do much about reducing, but we can take care of the other two.”

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