BAN launches whistleblower portal

The Basel Action Network (BAN), headquartered in Seattle, has launched an online whistleblowers portal designed to protect the identity of those with stories or evidence of companies violating international law and relevant voluntary certifications.

The announcement follows what BAN describes as a new "surge of greed and exploitation" that is sending a "plastic and e-waste tsunami” to Southeast Asia.

The organization recently alerted the Malaysian government of ships carrying e-scrap from the U.S., resulting in the seizure of 106 containers in June. BAN also cites reports that the Malaysian government raided two more e-scrap processing factories it discovered in palm plantations north of Penang, with one factory reportedly turning the plastic from the electronics into fish food pellets.

“Sadly, we are finding a new wave of unscrupulous recyclers, waste managers and brokers that seek to use the developing world as their convenient dumping grounds in order to maximize profits at the expense of people and the planet,” BAN Chief Operating Officer Hayley Palmer says. “Equally distressing is finding out how many respectable companies are willing to ignore their corporate responsibility and make use of such unethical service providers.”

She adds that BAN has “created a pathway for individuals privy to this disgrace and willing to choose integrity.”

The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, an international treaty that entered into force in May 1995 but that the U.S. has as yet to ratify, prohibits the export of hazardous waste, including electronic, from developed to developing countries and requires strict controls on most plastic scrap as well. 

In 2010, BAN launched e-Stewards, a third-party audited certification program for electronics recyclers that calls for participants to operate as if they are in a country that has ratified the Basel Convention. The e-Stewards certification program offers a detailed standard and replaced BAN’s former Electronic Recycler’s Pledge of True Stewardship, a program that involved a basic third-party desk and documentation audit.

"It’s stunning how companies can claim on the one hand that they project the highest standards of environment, social impact and governance (ESG), but with the other sweep their toxic, problematic wastes out the back door to substandard operations, cloaked by the opaque world of international shipping," BAN founder and Executive Director Jim Puckett says. "With this program, we aim to place this shame of the recycling industry under a bright spotlight. It has to stop."