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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 28, 2009
10:19 AM

CONTACT: Basel Action Network

Sarah Westervelt at BAN in Seattle: 1.206.604-9024, or swestervelt@ban.org
Jim Puckett at BAN in Seattle 1.206.354.0391, jpuckett@ban.org

Holiday e-Waste? Beware Fake Recyclers!

Old TVs and Computers are Likely to be Dumped in Developing Countries

SEATTLE - December 28 - For those of you that got that new flat screen TV as a holiday gift and are wondering what to do with that old cathode ray tube dinosaur now parked in the garage, the Basel Action Network (BAN), a global toxic-trade watchdog organization, warns that old electronics are hazardous and should not be handed over to just any company calling itself a recycler. 

"The sad little secret of our high-tech world is that we are creating mountains of this new form of toxic waste, and most electronics recyclers do not recycle the material at all, but simply throw it into a seagoing container and export it to destinations like China, India and Africa," said BAN's e-Stewardship Director Sarah Westervelt. "In these developing countries, your old computer or TV will be smashed, melted, and burned in highly dangerous and polluting operations by a desperately improverished and unprotected workforce."

Even major electronics retailers and manufacturers' "take back" programs do not guarantee your old toxic e-waste will not be shunted offshore.   State legislation is also unable to prevent exports to developing countries.   

To make sure that your electronic discards do not end up harming the planet and the poor, BAN urges consumers to use only licensed e-StewardTM recyclers.  The e-Stewards have been vetted by BAN and have agreed not to export hazardous electronics despite the profits that can be made by avoiding the real costs of proper domestic recycling.  Find e-Steward recyclers here: www.e-Stewards.org.

BAN was the first to document the cyber-age nightmare of the global e-waste trade and has since led teams from PBS's Frontline and CBS's 60 Minutes to the global e-Wastelands of Africa and China.   BAN investigators returned from a trip last month to Ghana where they witnessed slum dwellers burning US televisions and computers in a wetlands with children rummaging through the toxic ashes for bits of metal.   

The United States is the only developed country in the world that does not strictly control the export of hazardous waste.   For this reason, BAN and the Electronic TakeBack Coalition are promoting legislation to ban e-waste exports in addition to the consumer based e-Steward solution.   

"Our government is acting irresponsibly, so this holiday season, we all need to do our part to spread good will on earth and not toxic e-waste," said Westervelt. "In 2010, let's be sure to give our recycling business only to those companies that handle e-waste without harming others: e-Stewards."  

For more information contact:

For photographs of electronic wastes dumped in Africa and China, see http://www.ban.org/photogallery/index.html

For a list of e-Steward recyclers, see www.e-Stewards.org

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BAN works to prevent the globalization of the toxic chemical crisis. We work in opposition to toxic trade in toxic wastes, toxic products and toxic technologies, that are exported from rich to poorer countries. Alternatively, we work to ensure national self-sufficiency in waste management through clean production and toxics use reductions and in support of the principle of global environmental justice -- where no peoples or environments are dispro-portionately poisoned and polluted due to the dictates of unbridled market forces and trade.