Editor's Letter

Robin Ingenthron, president of the World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association (WR3A), remains hopeful that dialog and mediation can stave off a well-meaning set of reactions that will result in some unfortunate unintended consequences.

The Basel Action Network (BAN) has been at the forefront in investigating and exposing unsafe and unscrupulous activities in the electronics recycling sector. BAN has been to villages in the developing world where worker health and safety is ignored as obsolete electronics are disassembled. Discarded scrap is then piled up along creeks or on the ground, where toxins can leach into the groundwater supply.

Having brought attention to a serious problem, BAN also has proposed a solution: a comprehensive ban on the exporting of electronic scrap. "BAN and the Electronic TakeBack Coalition are pursuing federal legislation to prohibit export nationally," BAN notes in a recent press release. "There’s no excuse for this dirty trade other than pure greed," says BAN Executive Director Jim Puckett. But is the entire global electronics refurbishing and recycling industry a "dirty trade?"

After having done yeoman’s work exposing the bad practices involved in electronics export, BAN offers a solution that punishes the innocent along with the guilty. Exporters and refurbishers throughout the world who manage honest businesses are having the rug pulled out from under them and have been declared guilty without a trial.

A "one size fits all" export prohibition destroys the existing business model for a class of computer refurbishing entrepreneurs throughout the developing world and makes an assumption that business owners in other nations are incapable of complying with worker health and safety standards.

Making comparisons to the coffee and jewelry industries and attempts to clamp down on exploitation in those sectors, Ingenthron has asked a mediator to intercede.

Speaking to attendees of a session at Recycling Today’s 2009 Electronics Recycling Conference in Atlanta, Ingenthron invited fellow panelist Stephen D’Esposito and Resolv.org to bring together the WR3A with organizations calling for sweeping export bans of used electronics.

Ingenthron wants BAN to think beyond a comprehensive export ban. Recalling that advocates of coffee grower reform early on favored a boycott of coffee, Ingenthron remarked, "You’re probably not going to make people’s lives better by avoiding them. We need to come together in some way to find a solution to the problems that Greenpeace and BAN have found that’s not ‘boycotting coffee.’ Just as responsible coffee growers were supported, let’s support the good recyclers," he stated.