Doing 'The Right Thing' with E-Waste

Lora Bentley spoke with Kate Sinding, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Sinding says the biggest sticking point in reaching an e-waste recycling standard is what to do about e-waste exportation. Even though many companies want to do the right thing, there's "leakage" in the system. Sinding says exports of e-waste to developing countries need to stop.

Bentley: Do we have federal legislation or regulations addressing proper e-waste disposal in the U.S.?
Sinding: The short answer is there really aren't any good existing federal regulations. It remains a largely unregulated industry. The Environmental Protection Agency did convene a stakeholder group to try and come up with what ultimately would have been guidance to govern the recycling of e-waste. It's known as the R2 process. But the only two environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) that were involved in that process pulled out.

Bentley: So it's up to the states, then, to regulate how e-waste is handled?
Sinding: Yes, the states can do that. The fact is, most haven't. I do know that New York, in looking at its regulations that govern solid waste management facilities, is looking at some new regs that would explicitly apply to e-waste recycling, but those haven't been released yet. I'm just aware that's what they're planning on. But for the most part, this remains unregulated at the state level, too.

Bentley: Why is that?
Sinding: There's just been a lot of trouble reaching consensus among the stakeholders. And a lot of that has to do with exporting e-waste and not as much with the standards that should apply to e-waste handling here in the U.S. Most e-waste still does get exported out of the U.S. for handling and processing. It's a very significant problem.

Bentley: Is that what brought the R2 process to a halt?
Sinding: I wasn't involved in the R2 process, but I do work closely with the two NGOs that were involved -- the Electronics Takeback Coalition and the Basel Action Network. A lot of what they were concerned about had to do with loopholes regarding e-waste export. And frankly, those divisions continue to exist.

Bentley: What's the best way to get around them or work through them, then?
Sinding: From our perspective, the best thing that can happen is that we get new federal legislation that restricts exports of e-waste out of this country. If we could get real, meaningful legislation that did that, then I think we could move toward a certification standard or some other kind of regulatory standard for facilities that operate in this country because we would have eliminated that very controversial export issue.

Bentley: Some say that the large international companies recycle and dispose of e-waste properly because it's just good business. How do you respond to that?
Sinding: As a general proposition, that's true. Clearly, good corporate governance would say that you don't want to be in the business of doing something where, on a "60 Minutes" piece all of a sudden, a whole bunch of your stuff shows up in a toxic dump in China. But we believe the reality is that even the best corporate actors have inadequate information about where the stuff is ending up and how it's ultimately being processed. There certainly are companies that want to do the right thing, but there's a lot of leakage in the system, too.

Bentley: So what do you recommend for those companies that are really serious about doing the right thing?
Sinding: I think when you're talking about the true disposal of e-waste, the reality is that companies should be undertaking a policy whereby they do not export it to developing countries. And of course we recognize that this represents economic development in those countries, but even those countries that do have laws on the books aren't enforcing them. It's a huge public health and environmental issue... Our view is that to the extent companies are going to export, it really should be to developed countries that have rigorous enforcement of environmental and health laws.

Bentley: With the Obama Administration's focus on sustainability, do you think we will see federal legislation on the issue here in the U.S.?
Sinding: Obviously we need an act of Congress if we're going to have legislation addressing the export issue, but I do think with the new administration's dedication to advancing green principles, we have a much better opportunity to try and develop a meaningful regulatory approach to the problem now.