SEATTLE, Wa. - June 4 -  The Basel Action Network (BAN) joined the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) today in announcing the launch of ANAB accreditation for the certifying bodies that will audit and certify the e-Stewards Certification program.  At the heart of the new e-Stewards Certification is an ethical ‘gold standard’ for responsible electronic equipment recycling – the only such standard that will finally put a stop to the export of toxic electronic waste to developing countries; the use of prison and child labor; and the dumping of toxic materials into our local landfills.  ANAB provides accreditation to certifying bodies for many ISO standards and now has expanded their scope to include the e-Stewards Certification program which is fully integrated with the ISO 14001 environmental management system standard.  

After years of frustration while contributing to multi-stakeholder standards development with the U.S. EPA and others, BAN realized that entrenched special interests would never agree to more than the lowest common denominator standards that would unfortunately fail to serve the marketplace of responsible customers and would even continue to allow practices that violate the laws of importing countries.  So last year, BAN decided to work independently with the best electronics manufacturers, recyclers, asset recovery companies, refiners, and experts to define a rigorous but practical global standard with environmental, social, and occupational parameters to finally solve the “e-waste anarchy.”  

Last fall, CBS’s 60 Minutes program featured BAN and highlighted the rampant practice of sham recyclers exporting toxic e-waste to Guiyu, China rather than ethically recycling it.  In China, this highly poisonous waste was processed by impoverished workers using primitive technologies that produce in heavy contamination: for example, children in Guiyu have lead levels in their blood 80% higher than in control populations. 

CBS continues to urge consumers to use the e-Steward recyclers. Just last week, BAN exposed another fake recycler that duped the Humane Society in a Pittsburgh, PA into sponsoring a free public e-waste collection event that promised local recycling.  Instead, the company, while posing as an ethical recycler, actualy exported the collected e-waste to developing countries.

Jim Puckett, the Executive Director of the Basel Action Network, observes "Corporate customers demand responsible management of their electronic waste, but they have often been duped by an industry that profits from a global shell game of shunting wastes, American jobs and responsibility offshore.  E-Steward certification is the first and best independent assurance that enterprise requirements will actually be met.”

In addition to ANAB providing accreditation for the e-Stewards program, SAI-Global will be providing auditor training for ANAB-accredited e-Stewards certifying bodies.  The certification is in the final stages of development, with the Final Verification Phase about to begin, resulting in the first accredited certifications in 2009 and a full launch of the certification program to all comers in early 2010.

For more information:

About the e-Stewards Recyclers and Certification Program: www.e-stewards.org

Recent research Report:  The EarthECycle Pittsburgh Recycling Scam is available at www.ban.org/Library/PittsburghScam.pdf

Photographs of unethical recycling available at www.ban.org/photogallery