Ontario may do away with controversial eco fees

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Ontario's Environment Minister Jim Bradley last week introduced a new Waste Reduction Act and Strategy, which would make numerous changes to the province's solid waste and recycling management, including doing away with controversial eco fees on electronics purchases.

The long-awaited Waste Reduction Act would replace the 2002 Waste Diversion Act and make some significant changes to how Ontario's solid waste and recycling programs would be run in the province.

The most visible public change to the program is to do away with Ontario's controversial eco-fees, which saw the cost for managing the end-of-life recovery of some products — tires and electronics — printed on the receipt at the check-out stand for consumers. Under the new act, printed prices for items will have the cost of recovery and recycling included, and not separated out as a separate cost.

The old Waste Diversion Act was responsible for setting up the province's e-scrap management program — the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Program was launched in 2009 — which is run by Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES). The Act would not change the status of OES if passed as is.

The act would also require individual producers of goods to be responsible for products sold in Ontario. This means that producers, currently required to take part in a cooperative industry funding organization (IFO), would be given the flexibility to manage their products as they see fit, while meeting the recycling requirements set by the government.

The Canadian wing of consumer battery stewardship program Call2Recycle welcomed the proposed legislation. "We believe Minister Bradley has taken a positive step in the right direction to further waste diversion in Ontario," says Joe Zenobio, Executive Director, Call2Recycle Canada. "And we look forward to working with the Ministry on setting achievable and clear standards, and implementing strategies to divert even more batteries from the province." According to the group's press release about the Act, the proposed policy would create a more open market, allowing organizations like Call2Recycle to build on their successful track record as an established, nationally-recognized battery collection program.

Released along with the act, Ontario's Waste Reduction Strategy, which details how the act would be implemented, is now available for 90 days of public and stakeholder feedback.

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E-Scrap 2013: How should we measure collection success?

Multiple stakeholders — including state officials, environmental managers at various OEMs and electronics recycling company executives — are rethinking how electronics collections should be measured. Is weight a sufficient measure, especially when state programs include both clunky, heavy televisions and lightweight laptops? Jason Linnell of the National Center for Electronics Recycling is looking into this issue. One compelling alternative is to use consumer awareness as a program metric, and initial plans for a potential multistate survey are underway. Jason will lay out the logic of such a measurement strategy and discuss its potential implications.

The E-Scrap Conference will be held at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate in Orlando, Florida, September 11-12. Early-bird registration is available at www.e-scrapconference.com or by clicking the banner below.

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California stakeholders debate options for CRT glass

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

CalRecycle hosted a meeting yesterday to discuss potential changes to the covered electronic waste program as it relates to CRT glass processing, with representatives of the recycling community taking the opportunity to voice their frustration with the current program.

Moderator Jeff Hunts of CalRecycle opened the meeting by outlining the state of CRT glass recycling in California. Since the program began in 2006, over 1.4 billion pounds of covered electronics have been recycled, with CRT glass accounting for approximately 99 percent of that amount by weight. Hunts also said that CalRecycle estimates an equal amount of non-covered electronics have also been collected in the state over the same period.

According to CalRecycle, problems have developed relating to the processing of residual glass. In order to receive payment from the state, a processor in California must ship glass to a destination authorized to receive and further treat the material. This has resulted in some material simply moving to different locations within the same city to satisfy the transportation requirements for payment. When material is processed, it increasingly relies on export destinations – primarily those in Mexico and India. As display technology has shifted firmly away from CRTs, the supply of CRT glass has far outpaced the demand. Additionally, many of the furnaces used to process CRT glass are no longer in operation.

Against that backdrop, the California Department of Toxic Substance Control changed the rules regulating CRT processing and disposition last October. In the meeting yesterday, stakeholders from CRT recycling industry in California shared their perspectives on a possible rule change to remove limits on CRT glass recycling and disposal, and encourage the development of new markets and products that utilize CRT glass.

"We need to move forward and realize the market has changed," said Dennis Kazarian, vice president at e-Recycling of California. "I am personally concerned that a lot of material is sitting in places where it won't see further processing. If there are other ways to process this material and protect ourselves we should do that. We've already seen some recyclers walk away from the glass and have had to clean it up. We should give ourselves every option available."

Others were not so eager to rewrite the rules, however.

"We must oppose anything that allows for the disposal of CRT glass," said Teresa Bui of Californians Against Waste. "Californians pay for the recycling of material and it would be environmentally damaging and against their expectations to allow for the glass to go to landfill."

While everyone agreed that specialized landfilling processes were not ideal, there was widespread sentiment that the current laws in the Golden State do little to encourage innovation to address the problem from a market perspective.

"The issue of developing new markets for the panel glass has been complicated and DTSC has not been helpful," said Bill McGeever, vice president of operations for ECS Refining. "The fact that this material is only considered hazardous in California and nowhere else is a significant barrier to making new products and developing new end markets for it. We've put ourselves into a corner."

All sides in the debate at the meeting concluded that if change were to come to the program, it would need to be developed in the state legislature. Many in attendance hoped the ideas and proposals discussed at the meeting could be used to persuade lawmakers to open up the issue.

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E-scrap bills move forward

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Electronics recycling continued to be a hot topic as legislatures across the country took up new recycling bills.

In Mississippi, a new law creates a directory of certified electronics recycling firms. Senate Bill 2754 aggregates available data to create a registry of e-scrap processors certified to either the Responsible Recycling (R2) or e-Stewards standards and, effective July 1, directs all state agencies to manage their end-of-life electronic assets exclusively through processors on that list. Mississippi is not one of the 25 states with a statewide electronics recycling program on the books.

In California, an attempt to update the state's e-scrap program has passed the Assembly and is awaiting a committee assignment in the Senate. Assembly Bill 1022 requires CalRecycle to make CRT glass market development payments to a manufacturer or an e-scrap processor who uses CRT glass to manufacture a product in this state. The bill would only last for a limited duration, although the exact time frame is unspecified. Additionally, AB 1022 would authorize the expenditure of up to $10 million annually for the purpose of making those market development payments.

A bill in Oregon is tackling some of the data security challenges associated with electronics recycling. House Bill 2429 would require public agencies develop and implement policies for securely removing personal information from digital data storage devices and other electronic data storage devices before selling, donating, recycling or sending the assets through the end-of-life management stream.

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Wistron facility processes e-plastics in China

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Six months into operation, Wistron's new plastics recycling operation in China is proving capable of processing a significant volume of plastic scrap from electronic devices.

The facility, located in Kunshan, China, includes a 323,000-square-foot processing facility, a 129,000-square-foot warehouse, and a 54,000-square-foot office space. It began operation in January and has a capacity to process 60,000 tons of ABS, HIPS, PC ABS and PC bottle regrind annually.

At the facility, baled mixed plastic is shredded to 3-10 centimeters in size before being sent through both a magnetic filtration and optical sorting process. After that process, the material is granulated to 6-12 millimeters in size. The 6-12 mm sorted chips are processed through a water purification system. Next, the material goes through a spin dryer to remove the moisture and is then stored in preparation for compounding. The 6-12 mm purified grading chips go through a formulation, mixing and extruding process. Finally, the chips are pelletized into post-consumer resin.

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Chinese recycling group seeks tour sites

A group of key members from a Chinese trade organization representing broad recycling interests in China will visit the U.S. in September. This organization wishes to meet with potential e-scrap suppliers and equipment makers in Southeastern states, particularly in Florida, for meetings and tours of facilities. To be put in contact with this group, please email china@resource-recycling.com.

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Certification scorecard

With the roster of companies attaining third-party certifications or audits continuing to grow, E-Scrap News has compiled a round-up of the firms announcing certification this past week.

• E-Scrap Technologies of Bolingbrook, Illinois is certified to ISO 14001 and R2.
• WeRecycle! is ISO 14001, R2 and e-Stewards certified at its Meriden, Connecticut facility, as well as its two locations in Mount Vernon, New York, making the firm one of the few, but growing number of dual R2 and e-Stewards certified processors.
• Access of Madison, Wisconsin; Ace Data Storage, Inc. of Gulfport, Mississippi; Allshred Services of Maumee, Ohio; Allshred Services of Worthington, Ohio; Commodity Resource & Environmental of Mojave, California; Commodity Resource & Environmental of Burbank, California; Commodity Resource & Environmental of Phoenix; COR365 Information Solutions of Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Green Team Shred-Safe of Pooraka, Australia; Goodwill Industries of Northwest Texas of Lubbock, Texas; Jayhawk File Express LLC of Topeka, Kansas; Metro Record Storage & Shredding of Bakersfield, California; Mobile Data Shredding of Baltimore, Maryland; On-Site Shredding LLC of Stamford, Connecticut; Piranha Paper Shredding LLC of New Berlin, Wisconsin; Secured Document Shredding, Inc. of Midland, Texas; Shred Trust of Deerfield Beach, Florida; and Super Shred of Greenville, North Carolina have either achieved or renewed their NAID Certification for Physical Destruction of Hard Drives.

Has your firm recently completed a CHWMEG audit or an ISO 9001, ISO 14001, R2, RIOS or e-Stewards certification? Email henry@resource-recycling.com to be included in this section and in E-Scrap News' quarterly directory.

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NewsBits

Technology Conservation Group, Inc. is the latest organization to join the Coalition for American Electronics Recycling. CAER was formed to lobby for the passage of comprehensive electronics recycling legislation in the U.S. and includes approximately 100 member companies and organizations.

Electronic Recyclers International is partnering with Girl Up, a United Nations Foundation program, to recover "gently-used electronics," with profits from resale going to the campaign which seeks to help at-risk adolescent girls around the world. The first ERI/Girl Up e-scrap collection event in New York City resulted in a $10,000 donation for Girl Up.

The Texas Campaign for the Environment crashed Walmart's annual shareholder meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas, urging the retail leviathan to adopt an electronics take-back program at its stores. The group cited Best Buy and Staples as examples of retailers offering the recycling service. "We are confident that they won't ignore their customers forever, but every day that they fail to act thousands of pounds of toxic electronic waste ends up in our land," said Robin Schneider, executive director of TCE. "Companies who care about these problems act to solve them. We're still waiting on Walmart."

Rising consumer electronics consumption in the Asia-Pacific region will feed the e-scrap recycling industry for years to come, according to analysis from Frost & Sullivan. The company says that the Asia-Pacific e-scrap recycling market in 2012 was worth $1.85 billion in 2012, a figure that Frost & Sullivan expects to reach $4.01 billion in 2017.

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Scrap circuit board index at three-year low

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

The weighted scrap circuit board index dipped below $7.00 per pound for the first time in nearly three years, with the May average of the index sinking to $6.87 per pound.

May's scrap circuit board index value is down 3.6 percent from April's estimate and down 7.8 percent from May 2012. Year-to-date, the index is down 14 percent, due largely to plummeting prices of precious metals, as well as base metal prices that are either flat or slowly receding.

This data represents the full metallic values of boards over time and are not the recycling values, as those values do not include the costs involved in actually extracting metal from boards, including freight, sampling charges, assay assessments, smelting, refining, process loss, return on investment, and penalties for various elements, including beryllium, bismuth and nickel.

These values are for the estimated intrinsic metal content of recovered PC boards. Some consumers label such material as mid-value. Lower-value scrap includes monitor and television boards. Higher-value scrap includes network and video cards, and motherboards.

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E-Scrap 2013: Managing e-scrap flows among NAFTA members

When the North American Free Trade Agreement was approved, the U.S., Canada and Mexico wanted to assure they were working as one on the environmental concerns that might be raised from free trade. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation is the resulting agency charged with addressing these concerns, one of which is the potential for the improper management of e-scrap. CEC has undertaken several important assessments and is holding workshops this summer regarding environmental sound management practices for refurbishers and e-scrap processors. What does this mean for the North American electronics industry? Dr. Irasema Coronado, the executive director of the CEC Secretariat, will provide a thorough overview.

The E-Scrap Conference will be held at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate in Orlando, Florida, September 11-12. Early-bird registration is available at www.e-scrapconference.com or by clicking the banner below.

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Ex-EPA chief hired by Apple

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

While Gina McCarthy continues to be in a fight to be confirmed the next director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the last one has landed a plum gig with Apple.

The computer giant has hired Lisa Jackson, the last EPA director, to be its vice president of environmental initiatives, a move that was welcomed by environmental groups that had been critical of the company. "Apple has made a bold move in hiring Lisa Jackson, a proven advocate with a track record of combating toxic waste and the dirty energy that causes global warming, two of Apple's biggest challenges as it continues to grow," said Greenpeace senior IT analyst Gary Cook in a statement.

Jackson says she has high hopes for the position. "Apple has shown how innovation can drive real progress by removing toxics from its products, incorporating renewable energy in its data center plans, and continually raising the bar for energy efficiency in the electronics industry," Ms. Jackson told Politico in an e-mail. "I look forward to helping support and promote these efforts, as well as leading new ones in the future aimed at protecting the environment."

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Staples Canada checks in on e-scrap progress

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Staples Canada has released a quarterly update on its sustainability initiatives — several of which relate to electronics recycling.

Canada's largest office products company expanded its e-scrap drop-off network to over 250 retail locations in the first quarter of the year. Through its partnership with eCycle Solutions, Staples Canada collected over 860 tons of electronics during this period. The company has a goal of diverting 3,300 tons of e-scrap this year.

The retailer has also partnered with Call2Recycle to collect alkaline and rechargeable batteries at its retail locations. In the first quarter of 2013, the company collected over 52,600 pounds of batteries — nearly half the amount collected in all of 2012. Staples Canada's goal is to collect over 132,000 pounds of batteries this year.

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Smartphone shipments approach one billion

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Nearly 959 million smartphones will be shipped in 2013, according to the latest estimates from International Data Corp.

The 33 percent year-over-year increase in global shipments also represents the first time that smartphone shipments will eclipse conventional cell phones, according to IDC. Much of this growth is expected to come from emerging markets, which will account for 65 percent of all shipments this year, compared to just 43 percent of global smartphone shipments in 2010.

The average selling price for new units is expected to decline again in 2013 to $372 — down from $407 in 2012 and $443 in 2011. The continued drop in the price of new units could potentially affect sales of refurbished phones, which are often resold in emerging markets or on budget carriers in developed markets.

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Wistron, Call2Recycle team up

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Battery stewardship organization Call2Recycle has established a central battery sorting hub in the U.S., signing an operational agreement with Wistron GreenTech, a company that operates an electronic materials processing facility in McKinney, Texas.

Wistron GreenTech is the recycling arm of the multi-billion dollar electronics producer Wistron, which helps design and make many consumer electronics parts and products for a variety of brands and manufacturers. The processing facility is the second Call2Recycle sorting facility in the U.S., with the other center located outside Pittsburgh. The 209,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art processing center is expected to "facilitate the processing of rechargeable batteries" collected from the Western half of the country, estimated to be approximately 20 percent of the batteries Call2Recycle collects in the U.S.

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Free listings available for the Resource Recycling Equipment Buyers' Guide

If you manufacture e-scrap recycling or processing equipment, be sure your company is listed in the all-new edition of our Recycling Equipment Buyers' Guide. Go to www.resource-recycling.com/buyersguide or click on the below banner to download a listing form. Send your free listing form in today!

Enhanced listings with logos and other information are available. Contact Resource Recycling advertising director, Rick Downing, with any questions. He can be contacted at rickdowning@oh.rr.com or (440) 257-6453.

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Certification scorecard

With the roster of companies attaining third-party certifications or audits continuing to grow, E-Scrap News has compiled a round-up of the firms announcing certification this past week.

• CLI Document Destruction of Norwalk, Ohio; Confidential Records Management, Inc. of Greenville, North Carolina; De Graaf Security of Amsterdam, Netherlands; On-Site Information Destruction Services of Iowa LLC of Waterloo, Iowa; and Reisswolf Heesch B.V. of Heesch, Netherlands have either achieved or renewed their NAID Certification for Physical Destruction of Hard Drives.

Has your firm recently completed a CHWMEG audit or an ISO 9001, ISO 14001, R2, RIOS or e-Stewards certification? Email henry@resource-recycling.com to be included in this section and in E-Scrap News' quarterly directory.

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NewsBits

IT asset management firm Liquid Technology has joined the Coalition for American Electronics Recycling, an organization focused on lobbying for the creation of comprehensive electronics recycling legislation in the U.S. Liquid Technology is ISO 14001 certified, a NAID member, and part of the e-Stewards Enterprise program.

Nearly two dozen organizations, including the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, the Texas Campaign for the Environment and several Korean and Indian occupational and environmental health groups, are calling on TCO Development to rescind its sustainability certification recently awarded to Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone. "This kind of irresponsible action by TCO gives the terms 'green label' and 'sustainability' a bad name and indicates that either TCO is unaware of Samsung's callous disregard for their workers' health or has decided to ignore the disturbing pattern of occupational illness, which would be even worse," said Ted Smith, coordinator of San Jose-California-based International Campaign for Responsible Technology.

The U.S. Postal Service sold 1,260 tons of e-scrap in 2012, earning $740,000. The scrap was generated internally by USPS.

The Vancouver Sun has an in-depth profile of a controversial non-profit electronics recycling organization. According to the story, the Electronics Recycling Association has repeatedly misrepresented major Canadian recycling organization, used their logos without permission, distributed false press releases, improperly exported material to China, and resold or donated computers with original data still intact. In short, it's a good read.

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Groups partner on new e-scrap measurement tool

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

Two electronics stewardship and IT management organizations have teamed up to better measure e-scrap recycling and disposal.

Solving the E-waste Problem (StEP), which is a United Nations University initiative known for innovative research on e-scrap issues, has partnered with IT and data center efficiency multi-stakeholder organization Green Grid to create a new metric for measuring e-scrap. Electronics Disposal Efficiency (EDE) measures the percentage of e-scrap by weight that is processed using certified responsible processors, versus the total weight of e-scrap disposed. Basically, it allows an organization to track the share of its end-of-life IT that is decommissioned and processed responsibly over time.

For the purposes of the metric, responsible processors and end-of-life IT asset managers include those certified to R2, RIOS, e-Stewards, SA8000, IDC GRADE, WEEELABEX and Ontario Electronic Stewardship.

"We're very enthusiastic for these two important organizations to unite and experience the benefits this initiative will bring to the e-waste industry," said Ruediger Kuehr, executive secretary of the StEP Initiative in an accompanying statement. "Both The Green Grid and StEP have advanced efficiency across the different sides of the IT equation. Although we are only at the very beginning of the e-waste discussion, we are taking crucial first steps by helping organizations identify and understand all their waste streams, and find the best disposal pathways."

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E-Scrap Conference: A concise look at industry consolidation

Like all emerging industries, today's leader in electronics recycling may soon lose its high ranking due to the attractiveness of growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The e-scrap industry has seen a rising number of M&A actions in the past three years. What does this mean for the industry overall and for each player in this sector? What are the larger trends in green technology investing that may affect M&A efforts in electronics recycling? These and other key M&A issues will be analyzed at the conference by Dan Coyne, a managing director at Canaccord Genuity, where he has helped structure a number of M&A deals for clients.

The E-Scrap Conference will be held at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate in Orlando, Florida, September 11-12. Early-bird registration is available at www.e-scrapconference.com or by clicking the banner below.

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ISRI study links e-scrap exports and jobs

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

A new report released by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries refutes the argument that stricter controls on the export of scrap electronics will directly lead to job growth.

The report, prepared by Brooklyn firm John Dunham and Associates, says that "there is no economic basis for the proposition that banning U.S. exports of scrap in general, or used electronic products in particular, will create jobs or improve economic growth."

While the report offers an interesting overview of the role of exports in the scrap recycling industry, it provides little new information specific to e-scrap, beyond specific rebuttals to earlier arguments favoring an export ban of e-scrap to developing countries. The report directly attacks the methodology and conclusions of a previously-released report from the Coalition for American Electronics Recycling and DSM Environmental Services that calculated 42,000 new jobs would be created by a U.S. ban on the export of scrap electronics to developing countries. ISRI's findings say that any new jobs would be offset by the losses caused by the closure of the export market. Additionally, the report says CAER's findings would need to be based on a survey of 230 companies to be statistically significant, rather than the 21 companies used.

However, the new report conflates job numbers and annual revenue of the broader scrap recycling and export industry with the much smaller and more specific electronics recycling industry. For instance, the report says that 30,000 U.S. workers are directly employed in the e-scrap industry, but then justifies continued support for export markets by saying that exports account for 34 percent of the 460,000 scrap recycling industry jobs and generated $40 billion in annual sales. In terms of e-scrap exports, the number of U.S. workers directly involved is not provided, nor is data on the annual sales attributable to e-scrap exports.

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