Toxic electronics tracked around the world to dumps

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After tracking hazardous waste shipments and dumping around the world, a national environmental group has sounded the alarm about a million pounds of old electronics innocently donated in Pennsylvania.
"When it comes to breaking down electronics, there are no free and environmentally safe recyclers," said Sarah Westervelt, of the Seattle-based environmental watchdog Basel Action Network.
The group contends that the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society and Allegheny County, Pa., should have known that a free electronics recycling program it set up with EarthEcycle LLC was too good to be true.
The environmental group this week issued a report claiming that EarthEcycle -- which collected more than 1 million pounds of old electronics through the Humane Society's recycling campaign in March and April -- ships hazardous waste to countries where it will most likely end up in toxic dumping grounds.
Such dumping grounds can cause severe health risks to people who live near them, because most electronics -- from televisions to computer monitors -- contain metals like lead and mercury that can cause cancer and other sicknesses when left exposed.
Jeff Nixon, 43, a former Allegheny County employee who owns and operates EarthEcycle, denies the accusations. He said they are innuendo by competitors concerned with the growth of his company because "we're taking money out of their pockets."
"I am recycling these materials at very little to no cost, while many other companies charge fees for their recycling," Nixon said, adding that he can afford to charge little for his recycling program because the majority of the electronics he collects are resold for use.
Basel Action Network, which tracked EarthEcycle containers to Hong Kong and South Africa, has a stated mission of curbing the dumping of hazardous waste in places like China, India, and parts of Africa.
The network was created after the 1989 convention in Basel, Switzerland, where a number of developed countries agreed to monitor and end the shipment and reckless disposal of hazardous materials like cathode ray tubes in computers and TV monitors, keyboards and other electronic materials.
The United States remains the only industrialized country that has not signed onto the Basel treaty.
In the EarthEcycle case, operatives of Basel Action Network tracked seven ocean-going containers as they left two warehouses -- Levin Furniture in Monroeville, Pa., and another in Homewood, Pa. -- and headed for Newark, N.J., and then to Hong Kong and South Africa.
Westervelt said Hong Kong officials turned back the shipment when they were notified by Basel officials of the hazardous waste materials. The group also alerted South African officials about one EarthEcycle container, which was bound for Johannesburg, she said.
Three of the containers eventually were going to go Vietnam, Westervelt added.
But Nixon said he shipped nine containers in total -- eight going to Hong Kong and one to South Africa -- and that it was he who ordered the shipment to Hong Kong to come back because a vendor, which he would not name, "failed to pay me the balance they owed."
Nixon said the South African shipment was headed to a vendor known as Butterfly Imports of Johannesburg. He said he is not responsible for the containers full of electronics currently steaming from Hong Kong back to Newark.
Both Nixon and Basel Action Network said they have not yet established whether the South Africa-bound container was received and processed by Butterfly Imports.
"The ownership of those containers left my control when we loaded them at the warehouse. The vendor was in charge of ground transport and shipping," Nixon said.
"It would be in the best interest of everyone if I was to take ownership (of the containers) when they come back, but we still have to consider our own legal liability," he added.
Nixon said he still has a warehouse in Monroeville filled with the electronics EarthEcycle has been collecting here.
Westervelt isn't surprised. "That's how these companies operate," she said. "All they have to do is rent a warehouse, sell containers of hazardous waste at about $6,000 per container, and when they get enough money, they abandon the warehouse."
But Westervelt of Basel Action Network, which started investigating Nixon's practices in March, claimedthat he preys on "the good name of entities like Allegheny County and the Humane Society to operate his scheme."
Nixon, who was employed by Allegheny County as an administrative services engineer from 1998 to 2002, contracted with the Humane Society to collect electronics in a number of county-owned facilities from March 28 through April 11.
He offered to raise $10,000 for every 100,000 pounds of old electronics collected for the Humane Society. And after EarthEcycle piled up more than 1 million pounds of electronics in a Levin Furniture warehouse in Monroeville, Nixon said he owed the Humane Society $150,000 from the recycling event.
"I want a better understanding of what is going on (with Nixon)," said Lee Nesler, executive director of the Humane Society. She added that the animal shelter has yet to receive the $150,000, but Nixon said he gave the Humane Society $10,000 last week.
E-mail Karamagi Rujumba at krujumba(at) post-gazette.com.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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