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Drowning in e-waste Safe disposal of mountains of old PCs, monitors is a snowballing problem we've only begun to face Henry Norr, Chronicle Staff Writer |
Sunday,
May 27, 2001 
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The new millennium hasn't been kind to cherished illusions. First it showed us that the new economy is subject to the same savage cycles as the old one. Then it forced us to face the fact that energy is a resource that's anything but unlimited. Now it's starting to teach another painful lesson: High tech, despite a carefully cultivated image as a clean-and-green New Age industry, has created a huge and ever-growing waste disposal problem. Solving it isn't going to be cheap or easy. For two decades, the industry has cranked out its wares by the tens of millions, with little regard to their ultimate disposition. Most of these products are laced with toxic materials that could threaten human health and the environment if incinerated or dumped into landfills. Given the industry's rapid rate of technical progress, most devices are considered obsolete within a few years, and sooner or later all of them will have to be disposed of. But this country's existing electronics-recycling infrastructure -- collection programs, disassembly facilities and reprocessing plants -- is far from adequate to the task of handling all that dangerous digital detritus, experts say. Creating the necessary facilities will be expensive, they add, and operating them even more so, because now and for the foreseeable future the value of components and materials that can be retrieved from old equipment doesn't come close to matching the cost of extracting them. And the parties that have begun to ponder the problem -- government agencies, environmentalists and a handful of manufacturers -- are deeply divided about who should have to cover the shortfall. The sheer magnitude of the problem is staggering. The only detailed study of the subject, published in 1999 by the National Safety Council's Environmental Health Center, projected that 500 million PC systems would become obsolete in the United States alone between 1997 and 2007. That widely quoted estimate appears to be somewhat exaggerated, because both businesses and consumers are keeping their PCs in service longer than the study's authors expected. Still, even if the actual number of retired PCs is well below the safety council's estimate, it's huge. And PCs are only part of the e-waste problem. Monitors are almost as numerous, and even richer in toxic materials. Then there are printers and other peripherals, plus steadily increasing numbers of cell phones and handhelds. And that's not to mention older-generation consumer electronics devices, like TVs, VCRs and boom boxes. POISON PRODUCTSThe most obvious problem in all this aging gear is lead, which the Electronic Industries Association, one of high tech's main trade organizations, calls "a critical component in practically all electronics products." That's especially true of cathode-ray tubes, the bulky glass funnels most computer monitors, as well as TVs, are built around. Even a small CRT typically contains 4 to 8 pounds of lead, and larger screens have proportionately more. The lead in working monitors is not considered a health or safety problem for users, because it's embedded in the glass the tube is made of. (It's there to to protect users from the X-rays generated inside the tube). But when the tube is broken into fragments -- something likely to happen sooner or later to monitors dumped in landfills -- there's a substantial risk the heavy metal will leach into the environment. In laboratory tests, most color monitors decisively fail the standard leaching test the federal Environmental Protection Agency uses to identify hazardous wastes. PCs also contain lead, mainly in the solder that holds chips to circuit boards, and in that form it's even more likely to escape into the environment. Although discarded electronics currently account for only a few percent of the nation's total solid waste, these products already contribute between 30 and 40 percent of the lead in the waste stream, according to EPA estimates, and the percentage is rising fast. Although lead-free solder materials have been developed, they have not yet been adopted on a wide scale by the electronics industry. A four-year, $19 million collaborative R&D program sponsored by the electronic association concluded that "substitutes for tin-lead solder are not readily available or (don't) meet necessary performance requirements." In addition to lead, PCs and consumer electronics contain a witches' brew of other toxic materials, although generally in much smaller quantities. Circuit boards and other components may include beryllium, cadmium, selenium, hexavalent chromium and mercury. Connectors, cables and plastic covers often incorporate flame retardants, which are under increasing scientific suspicion as possible carcinogens. Switches often contain mercury, as do the fluorescent bulbs that light up liquid-crystal displays. THE ASIAN CONNECTIONSo far, very little of this nation's digital flotsam and jetsam is being recycled. Only 11 percent of the PCs retired in 1998 were recycled, the NSC study reckoned. An additional 3 percent was refurbished for resale or donation to schools or charities, either directly or through nonprofit intermediaries such as the 10-year-old Bay Area group the Computer Recycling Center (www.crc.org). That's a commendable practice, of course, but one that only postpones the question of the equipment's ultimate disposition when it breaks down or grows so old no one wants it. Besides, in the case of electronic equipment, "recycling" often turns out to mean simply "removal" rather than proper reprocessing. Although precise data aren't available, industry insiders -- like Renee St. Denis, product recycling solutions manager at Hewlett-Packard in Roseville -- say a large percentage of the material sent to recyclers is eventually sold as mixed scrap to wholesale brokers, who in turn export it in bulk to other countries, mainly in Asia. Seven years ago, St. Denis took over what was then a small-scale HP program to recover service parts from discarded computers the company had been using internally. The remaining machinery was sold for pennies a pound to scrap brokers. St. Denis began to look into where it went from there. "We followed the chain, and we didn't like what we saw at the end of it," she said. "Typically, it ended up in Third World countries with very little in the way of environmental standards." The NSC researchers voiced similar suspicions. They were unable to account for what actually happened to more than half the CRTs ostensibly recycled in 1998. Their conclusion: Most of the missing monitors probably went into bulk shipments to China. An international agreement known as the Basel Convention regulates traffic in hazardous waste. Nearly all major nations, including the United States, have signed the agreement, but three signatories have failed to ratify it: Afghanistan, Haiti and the United States. A ban on export of hazardous materials from industrial to nonindustrial countries was adopted under the convention in 1994 and accepted by the European Union, but this country has rejected that rule. Fortunately, experts say, the bulk of the nation's e-waste hasn't gone anywhere yet, except into storage. Although no one knows for sure, the EPA and others in the field frequently cite an estimate that 75 percent of our unused electronic gear is sitting in closets, attics and warehouses. But everyone knows that can't go on forever. GROWING AWARENESSUntil recently, most Americans have been oblivious to these issues, even though they've attracted increasing attention -- and spurred sweeping new legislation -- in Japan and Europe. Aside from occasional one-day drop-off programs in some communities, consumers and small businesses have had no convenient way to recycle truly obsolete electronics. Now, things are starting to change. Consider these recent developments: -- San Francisco has taken a series of steps to promote electronics recycling. Last summer, the city began a pilot program under which consumers and small businesses can drop off equipment at five computer dealers or at HMR, an Australian recycling company with a facility near China Basin. The city even paid $100,000 to help HMR defray the cost of a machine capable of crushing 300 CRTs an hour. In conjunction with HMR, Sanitary Fill, the Norcal subsidiary that runs the city's solid-waste transfer station, also began recycling computers, monitors and TVs dropped off at its facility at 501 Tunnel Ave. Residents taking advantage of that program have to pay per-pound fees plus a surcharge for monitors -- $13 for a 15-inch monitor, for example. But residents who pay their own garbage bills, as well as apartment owners, can now arrange to have such devices picked up by appointment and recycled free of charge under the city's bulky-item collection program. -- Representatives of dozens of local companies, nonprofits and environmental and waste-management agencies came together last November to form the San Francisco Bay Area Electronics Recycling Infrastructure Working Group. Convened by the Materials for the Future Foundation -- a San Francisco group that has been exploring the problem for several years -- and sponsored by the California Integrated Waste Management Board and the regional office of the federal EPA, the task force has since held two other large meetings to explore solutions to the e-waste problem. -- In response to a request for clarification of state regulations from the new Bay Area working group, California's Department of Toxic Substances Control decided in March that CRTs are hazardous waste and therefore can't be dumped in municipal landfills. In fact, the DTSC declared that has always been the case under state regulations, although it had never enforced or even articulated such a policy before. The agency's ruling should bring an end to what has been a common practice in the state. But it has left recyclers and solid-waste handlers in a dicey legal position, because few of them -- even HMR, the company with the city- supported monitor-crushing machine -- are certified to handle hazardous waste, which requires special training, record-keeping and insurance. In its policy statement, though, the DTSC said it "does not intend to disrupt the current, safe collection and recycling of CRTs" -- in effect declaring that it will ignore legal technicalities for the time being. Officials had hoped the Legislature would create a new legal status for CRT recyclers, but with Sacramento distracted for now by the energy crisis, the DTSC is reportedly drafting emergency regulations to address the problem. (An agency spokeswoman declined to comment.) -- Environmental activists and waste-management officials are stepping up pressure on electronics-makers to take responsibility, in one way or another, for the safe disposal of their products. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a San Jose nonprofit, recently initiated an Electronics Take It Back! campaign, demanding that manufacturers arrange or pay for collection and recycling of their wares when they become obsolete -- the same "polluter pays" principle that underlies laws recently adopted in Japan and several European countries. Meanwhile, a broader coalition that calls itself the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative last month began discussions with the industry on plans that wouldn't put the whole burden on the industry, but would require it to take greater responsibility for the problem. The group plans to hold a second round of discussions in San Francisco next month. -- In response to such pressures, the industry has begun to promote recycling -- but in ways that cost it little. According to electronic association spokesman Rob Nichols, the committee of 60 chief executive officers that sets the trade group's policy directions recently declared environmental issues one of its top four priorities. At January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the group handed out T-shirts that read "Don't trash your PC," and the following month it started a Web site -- www.eiae.org - - to help consumers locate donation programs and recycling companies. Meanwhile, IBM last fall and HP last week began fee-based programs that let consumers send in unwanted computing gear to be refurbished and donated or recycled. Under HP's Web-based program, for example, charges range from $13 to $34 per item. Dell and Gateway have also created donation and trade-in programs, while Sony is collecting and recycling its own products free -- in Minnesota only. MASSACHUSETTS' DILEMMAOne factor pushing the cost issue to center stage is the example of Massachusetts, which prohibited landfilling of CRT monitors and televisions more than a year ago. Unlike California, which backed into its recent ban without advance planning, widespread public debate or legislative action, the Bay State planned carefully for the move. There, the ban was adopted by the state legislature, which funded a program of seed grants to help the state's cities and towns implement it. The idea was that the grants would enable the municipalities not only to set up collection programs, but also to find markets for the recycled products and that the resulting revenues, combined with recycling fees paid to be paid by residents, would make the program financially self-supporting. Unfortunately, according to state Rep. Mark Carron, that hasn't happened. "No one has been able to make it self-sustaining," he said last week, and with the seed grants soon to expire, "the cities and towns are starting to feel the pinch." In response, Carron has introduced a bill that would prohibit manufacturers from selling CRTs in the state until they have established a state-approved plan for collecting such products -- at the company's expense -- when buyers no longer want them. DESIGN FOR RECYCLINGWhile the debate is still taking shape in the United States, it appears to be approaching a climax in Europe. Earlier this month, the European Parliament approved new legislation, more than five years in the making, based on a principle known as "extended producer responsibility." It requires electronics manufacturers to pay for collection and recycling of most obsolete electronics products, from hair dryers to PCs, at the end of their useful lives. The program won't go into effect until it is approved by the governments of the European Union's member states. But its passage in the European Parliament was a major victory for environmentalists -- and a stunning defeat for electronics industry organizations based in the United States, which had adamantly opposed the plan and even enlisted the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to lobby against it. Industry lobbyists succeeded, however, in persuading the parliament to water down a companion bill that would have required manufacturers to phase out use of many toxic materials in their products. That provision had drawn even-heavier fire from U.S. trade groups, which argued that many of the alleged health risks weren't proven and that safe and effective substitutes for the suspect materials aren't yet available. Through the long haul, though, all sides agree that changing the way electronics products are designed is key to addressing the environmental challenges they raise. Phasing out use of toxic materials is one important goal, but not the only one, according to experts. Equipment also must be made easier to upgrade, so users will keep it in use longer even as technology evolves, and easier to dismantle at the end of its life, so separating components and materials for recycling won't be as complicated and costly as it is today. Manufacturers also have to avoid practices like coating or painting plastics, which can make recycling impractical, and incorporate more recycled materials into their products. IBM last year released one computer model, the IntelliStation E Pro, in which all plastics are made of recycled resins. According to Wayne Balta, the company's director of corporate environmental affairs, it was an experiment intended to "kick start the use of recycled plastics and to prove to ourselves and the outside world that it could be done, " but so far the example has not been followed either in other products from competitors or even IBM itself. To Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (recently honored by the Dalai Lama as one of the Bay Area's ''unsung heroes of compassion"), promoting greener design is one of the key arguments for making manufacturers take responsibility for recycling electronics products. "The 'polluter pays' principle sends a strong signal to the companies to change," he told a Commonwealth Club audience in San Francisco this month. When manufacturers have to cover the costs of recycling, he said, "it creates a powerful incentive . . . to reduce such costs by designing products that are clean, safe, durable, reusable, repairable, upgradable, and easy to disassemble and recycle." E-mail Henry Norr at hnorr@sfchronicle.com |
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