What Do Jewelry and E-waste Have In Common?

This week in our environmental epidemiology class one of the main topics of discussion was lead. Our instructor brought up a very interesting source of exposure: lead jewelry. The discussion included a talk about how e-waste is contributing to this problem.

I came across two well-known stories from the United States that demonstrate this issue. In 2003, in Oregon, a 4 year old boy died after swallowing a piece of jewelry bought from a vending machine. Later it was discovered that the toy medallion consisted of 38.8% lead [CDC report, 2004]. More recently, in 2006, another child died from acute lead poisoning in Minnesota, after ingesting a metallic heart-shaped charm. The charm was a gift with purchase from Reebok, which was almost entirely made from lead (99.1%) [CDC report, 2006]. In both instances, the product responsible was imported from abroad. The Consumer Product Safety division of Health Canada, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the US, are responsible for ensuring that tragedies like this never happen but evidently things are missed.

The Difficulty of Finding a Reputable Recycling Company

I've come across dozens of documentaries and articles about recycling companies who claim to do their recycling locally, when in fact some of their items are shipped overseas. An exceptional video from CBS' program 60 Minutes looks at a small business in Colorado called Executive Recycling. This company has successfully spread the message to residents about the importance of recycling products locally, but they are caught on video shipping containers filled with cathode ray tubes (CRTs - from old tvs and computer monitors) to Hong Kong.

There is a particularly uncomfortable scene when they visit Guiyu, China (the worlds largest e-waste dumping ground), and the cameramen had to wrestle to keep their cameras once discovered by the owners of the recycling operation. It serves to emphasize the political nature of this issue. One thing I just couldn't understand at first was how these dumping grounds could be kept a "secret" for soo long. Slowly I'm learning that this is an issue of power, poverty and greed. Surprise, surprise... Jim Puckett, an environmental health and justice activist and co-founder of the Basel Action Network, is interviewed in the film. The reporter asked him why people continue to knowingly work in this hazardous industry. This is his response:

"Desperate people will do desperate things, but we should never put them in that situation. It's a hell of a choice between poverty and poison and we should never make people make that choice."

Here is the documentary for those of you that are interested:

When E-waste Becomes A Security Issue

According to the 2009 Converge IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) Trends Report, "almost twice as many American IT managers said data security is more important to their organizations than being green when it comes to IT asset disposal." Although the report notes that there is better awareness of e-waste policies and procedures, I found their motivation for proper e-waste disposal to be quite interesting.

To elaborate on the security issue, there has been increasing concerns about the mishandling of personal information left on old electronics. In the introductory film previously posted, e-waste is presented as an explanation for why Ghana is the world's leading country for cyber crime. Ghana, being one of the known international e-waste dumping grounds, has been identified as a central region where electronic recyclers extract personal information such as credit card and bank account numbers to commit fraudulent acts.

At the end of the day it seems that IT managers could ensure both better security and greener disposal by utilizing local, reputable disposal companies. As long as both ends are achieved, I guess this is progress??