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For Immediate Release
March, 01 2011, 09:41am EDT
Contact:
Neil Peters-Michaud, CEO Cascade Asset Mgt
Phone: (608) 316-6637
Email: nmichaud@cascade-assets.com
Lauren Roman, e-Stewards Business Director
Phone: (973) 224-7632
Email: LRoman@ban.org
California, Florida and Indiana e-waste Recycling Facilities Earn e-Stewards Certification
Cascade Asset Management offers coast-to-coast e-Stewards IT asset disposition solutions
MADISON, WI
The Basel Action Network (www.BAN.org), a global toxic trade watchdog organization, announced today that the Florida, Indiana and California technology equipment refurbishing and recycling centers of Cascade Asset Management (Cascade), are now e-Stewards Certified(r), and thus adhere to the world's highest standard for socially and environmentally responsible recycling. With this announcement, California and Florida now have their first e-Stewards Certified recycling option. Cascade's Wisconsin headquarters became e-Stewards Certified in 2010. Now all of Cascade's recycling facilities are e-Stewards Certified.
Cascade's four processing centers provide a coast-to-coast solution to institutions and enterprises looking for secure and responsible IT asset disposition. In the last two years, Cascade has been able to complete over 18,000 on-site pickups at locations across all fifty states. Since 1999, Cascade has handled over 62 million pounds of unwanted electronics for reuse and recycling.
"In the absence of leadership or laws requiring responsible electronics recycling here in the US, BAN created a program to help organizations and individuals find responsible electronics recyclers. Certified e-Stewards Recyclers have undergone a rigorous independent audit process to ensure they are not simply dumping this toxic waste on developing countries under the guise of recycling that sadly is the norm in this industry," said Jim Puckett, BAN's Executive Director. "As a Certified e-Stewards Recycler, Cascade Asset Management can now assure customers their obsolete electronics will be managed to the highest standards of responsibility."
The e-Stewards program is recognized by environmental organizations, government entities, and private enterprises as the gold standard for vetting electronics recyclers. The accredited, third-party audited certification program has not only been endorsed by Greenpeace USA, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Electronics TakeBack Coalition and 68 other environmental organizations, but has also drawn the support of major corporate "e-Stewards Enterprises" such as Wells Fargo, Samsung, Capitol One, and Bank of America.
"e-Stewards Certification validates Cascade's ongoing commitment to responsible processing of IT assets," said Neil Peters-Michaud, CEO and founder of Cascade. "It's a rigorous standard that evaluates all our operations, systems, and downstream management to demonstrate conformance to the highest standard for responsibility in the industry."
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About Cascade
Cascade Asset Management has provided full service IT asset retirement solutions since 1999 with four facilities throughout the United States. The company collects, receives and processes office electronics from enterprises and institutions across North America. For more information about Cascade, please visit www.cascade-assets.com or call (888) 222-8399.
About the Basel Action Network
The Basel Action Network (BAN) was founded in 1997 and named after the Basel Convention, the United Nations treaty that restricts trade in hazardous wastes and was intended to stop the dumping of toxic waste on developing nations. In the last decade, BAN has exposed the toxic trade issue to the world via investigations, reports and documentary films on two of the largest illegal hazardous waste streams traded internationally today: electronic waste and toxic ships destined for 'recycling' in developing countries. Today, BAN is not only the leading global source of information and advocacy on toxic trade and international hazardous waste treaties, but it has also developed market-based solutions that rely on the highest standards for globally responsible recycling and rigorous independent certification to those standards. For more information on BAN and the e-Stewards program, visit www.e-stewards.org.
Basel Action Network's mission is to champion global environmental health and justice by ending toxic trade, catalyzing a toxics-free future, and campaigning for everyone's right to a clean environment.
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Lina Khan Slams Trump FTC for Giving Oil Executives a Free Pass After Price-Fixing Scandal
Khan accused the administration of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
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A ban imposed last year by top antitrust enforcer Lina Khan under the Biden administration had stopped two fossil fuel CEOs accused of colluding on oil prices from serving on powerful corporate boards, with the Federal Trade Commission saying at the time that the order would "help ensure American consumers benefit from lower prices at the pump."
But the Trump administration on Thursday signaled no interest in ensuring oil companies won't engage in price-fixing and collusion to boost profits at the expense of working families as the FTC overturned the order that prevented former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield and Hess CEO John Hess from serving on the boards of ExxonMobil and Chevron, respectively.
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The FTC, now led by pro-corporate Republican Andrew Ferguson, said the commission's complaints about Sheffield's and Hess's communications with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not "plead any antitrust law violation" or show that the acquisitions of the smaller companies and the CEO's positions on the boards "would be anticompetitive."
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The FTC also found that Hess "stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged [OPEC] officials to take actions on these issues and speak about them at different events."
One analysis by Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project found that price-fixing schemes by corporations—not inflation—were to blame for 27% of the higher prices American families faced in 2021.
Khan on Thursday accused President Donald Trump's FTC of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
The commission's three Republican members voted to allow Sheffield and Hess to serve on the boards—even as one of them, Commissioner Mark Meador, said that OPEC operates "as a de facto cartel" and warned the FTC "should not hesitate to bring enforcement actions against actual collusion."
Ferguson, meanwhile, claimed that banning Sheffield and Hess from the company boards "would damage the FTC's credibility and undermine its mission"—a statement that was denounced by the government watchdog Revolving Door Project.
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"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior," added Revolving Door Project. "But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction—signaling to corporate America that they won't be held accountable for fleecing the public."
Schupak said that "while the Trump administration feigns interest in bringing energy prices down, its policies—fast-tracking export projects, rolling back regulatory safeguards, and halting enforcement actions for corporate wrongdoing—reveal the administration is far more interested in boosting the profitability of the oil and gas industry than providing Americans any relief or safeguarding them against corruption."
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Since then, Nelson writes, "The Trump administration has launched a full-scale assault on what remains."
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In another essay, Samantha Tweedy, the CEO of the Black Economic Alliance, described "an all-out assault on... Black liberty, livelihood, history, prosperity, economic power, and opportunity," being carried out "under the false premise and scapegoating of 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.'"
The Trump administration has aggressively sought to purge DEI initiatives and affirmative action from all sectors of public life, banning them from use in the federal government and putting pressure on private corporations and universities to abandon them as well.
Fueling this, Tweedy says, is the "destructive lie" that "for Black people to succeed, others must lose out." The report goes on to cite statistics from the Federal Reserve Bank, Citi, and McKinsey showing that closing economic disparities increases economic prosperity for the entire country.
One of the engines propelling the Trump administration's attack on civil rights has been the DOJ's Civil Rights division itself, which the report says has been "hollowed out and repurposed" to go after universities that pursue DEI initiatives.
The report also singled out Harmeet Dhillon, who Trump tapped to lead the Civil Rights Division, for her past assertions that the 2020 election was stolen and her writings arguing against the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would have restored power to the original law.
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The report especially singled out the violent shift on Elon Musk's X, which saw a dramatic increase in hate speech against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people after the billionaire bought the platform.
"We are witnessing something more than policy shifts," said the Urban League's president and CEO, Marc H. Morial, in the report's foreword. "We are watching an attempt to turn back the clock to an era when the full humanity of all Americans was not recognized—when the idea of true equality was treated as a threat to the social order."
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Opponents including native and Afro-descendant communities and environment defenders are urging progressive Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to veto legislation passed Thursday by the lower house of the National Congress that would dramatically weaken environmental protections and Indigenous peoples' control over their own lands.
Bill 2159/2021—commonly called the "Devastation Bill"—was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in a 267-116 vote in the dead of night following its passage by the Senate in May. The vote, which took place at approximately 3:40 am, was called by Chamber of Deputies President Hugo Motta of the right-wing Republicans party. Both houses of the National Congress have strong right-wing majorities; some members of Lula's leftist Workers' Party also voted for the bill.
If approved by Lula, the legislation would introduce an online self-declaration process for environmental licensing for many mining and agricultural projects that critics say will fuel deforestation and other destruction. The bill also speeds up the review process for development projects prioritized by the federal government and eliminates reviews for highway upgrades.
"As approved, the bill encourages deforestation and aggravates the climate crisis," Marcio Astrini, executive director of the Climate Observatory," said following the vote.
"Lula says Brazil will lead the environmental agenda by example. A veto, on the eve of COP30, is the perfect opportunity to make the discourse into practice," he continued, referring to this November's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém.
"We hope that he will meet his campaign commitments and reject this absurd text approved by the Brazilian Congress," Astrini added.
Lula has 15 days to either approve or veto the measure. However, the right-wing congressional majority could overturn a veto, prompting the Supreme Court to intervene.
Proponents argue the bill would simplify the regulatory process.
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However, Climate Observatory public policy coordinator Suely Araújo said that the proposal represents "the greatest setback to Brazil's environmental legislation" since licensing requirements were introduced in the 1980s.
Some critics of the bill pointed to Article 225 of the Brazilian Constitution, which states that "everyone has the right to an ecologically balanced environment, which is an asset of common use and essential to a healthy quality of life, and both the government and the community shall have the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations."
Brazilian Minister for Indigenous Peoples Sônia Guajajara, a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), said on the social media site X that Thursday's vote "should be forever remembered as the moment when the Chamber of Deputies attacked Brazilian environmental legislation and showed its lack of commitment to the future."
"In the year we will host the COP, our parliamentarians show what example not to set for the world," she added.
Célia Xakriabá, a PSOL deputy representing Minas Gerais, called the bill "legislative ecocide."
Quilombolas—residents of quilombos, Afro-Brazilian communities formed by self-liberated slaves or their descendants—and their advocates also sounded the alarm over the bill, pointing to existing efforts by extractive industries to kick them off their lands.
"The Devastation Bill threatens over 80% of quilombos and 32% of Indigenous lands in Brazil," progressive Rio de Janeiro consultant Lázaro Rosa noted on X. "Let's put strong pressure to ensure this abomination is not approved."
Erika Hilton, a PSOL federal deputy representing São Paulo, said that if the bill is approved by Lula, "mining companies will be able to renew their licenses automatically, without technical studies or prior analysis."
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Hilton continued: "Even so, the tendency is that, with the narrative that all our environmental legislation is bureaucracy that hinders development, the deputies will approve this horror. But what country develops with an environmental tragedy every other day? What country develops if children start being born without brains due to pollution, like in the '70s in Cubatão? What country develops if the people no longer have water to drink, air to breathe, and life to live?"
"These are the questions that the deputies are ignoring," she added.
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