Sunday, November 18, 2007

America ships electronic waste overseas

America ships electronic waste overseas



By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer

Sun Nov 18, 1:53 PM ET





SAN FRANCISCO - Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.



While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.



"It is being recycled, but it's being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. "We're preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world."



The gear most likely to be shipped abroad is collected at free recycling drives, often held each April around Earth Day, recycling industry officials say. The sponsors — chiefly companies, schools, cities and counties — often hire the cheapest firms and do not ask enough questions about what becomes of the discarded equipment, the officials say.



Many so-called recyclers simply sell the working units and components, then give or sell the remaining scrap to export brokers.



"There are a lot of people getting away with exporting e-waste," said John Bekiaris, chief executive of San Francisco-based HMR USA Inc., which collects and disposes of unwanted IT equipment from Bay Area businesses. "Anyone who's disposing of their computer equipment really needs to do a thorough inspection of the vendors they use."



The problem could get worse. Most of the 2 million tons of old electronics discarded annually by Americans goes to U.S. landfills, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. But a growing number of states are banning such waste from landfills, which could drive more waste into the recycling stream and fuel exports, activists say.



Many brokers claim they are simply exporting used equipment for reuse in poor countries. That's what happened in September, when customs officials in Hong Kong were tipped off by environmentalists and intercepted two freight containers. They cracked the containers open and found hundreds of old computer monitors and televisions discarded by Americans thousands of miles away.



China bans the import of electronic waste, so the containers were sent back to the U.S.



The company that shipped out the containers was Fortune Sky USA, a Cordova, Tenn.-based subsidiary of a Chinese company. General manager Vincent Yu said his company thought it was buying and shipping used computers, not old monitors and televisions, and is trying to get its money back.



Fortune Sky exports used computers and components to China, Malaysia, Vietnam and other Asian countries.



"There's a huge market over there for secondhand computers that we don't use anymore," Yu said. "I don't think it's going to cause any pollution. If the equipment can still be used, then that's good for everybody."



Yu refused to say where he bought the material, but Basel Action Network tracked it to a San Antonio, Texas, company that collects computers, printers and other electronics from schools and businesses.



Activists complain that most exporters don't test units to make sure they work before sending them overseas.



"Reuse is the new excuse. It's the new passport to export," said Puckett of Basel Action Network. "Other countries are facing this glut of exported used equipment under the pretext that it's all going to be reused."



At the other end at customs, the goods don't always get checked either.



"It is impossible to stop and check every single container imported into Hong Kong," said Kenneth Chan of Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department. "Smugglers may also deliberately declare their ... waste as goods."



In the first nine months of this year, Hong Kong authorities returned 85 containers of electronic junk, including 20 from the U.S.



Exporting most electronic waste isn't illegal in the United States. The U.S. does bar the export of monitors and televisions with cathode-ray tubes without permission from the importing country, but federal authorities don't have the resources to check most containers.



The EPA recognizes the problem but doesn't believe that stopping exports is the solution, said Matt Hale, who heads the agency's office of solid waste. Since most electronics are manufactured abroad, it makes sense to recycle them abroad, Hale said.



"What we need to do is work internationally to upgrade the standards (for recycling) wherever it takes place," he said.



The EPA is working with environmental groups, recyclers and electronics manufacturers to develop a system to certify companies that recycle electronics responsibly. But so far the various players have not agreed on standards and enforcement.



Many activists believe the answer lies in requiring electronics makers to take back and recycle their own products. Such laws would encourage manufacturers to make products that are easier to recycle and contain fewer dangerous chemicals, they say.



Eight states, including five this year, have passed such laws, and companies such as Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony now take back their products at no charge. Some require consumers to mail in their old gear, while others have drop-off centers. HP says it also now designs its equipment with fewer toxic materials and has made it easier to recycle.

__




On the Net:



Basel Action Network: http://www.ban.org/



Computer Take Back Campaign: http://www.computertakeback.com/



International Association of Electronics Recyclers: http://www.iaer.org/


e-Waste nightmare

This is an eye opening article. We marveled at all the high tech products and equipments that we take for granted since they are enabling us and improving our productivity. Many of these products such as computers, printers, Fax machine, CD & DVD players, HD TVs, Ipod, IPhone; they are tools to keep us working smarter and and also toys to keep us entertained. Some high tech products are used in health care to enhance our life and in the medical field to improve our way of living so that we can be healthier. The end of life of these products that we discarded are either sitting around collecting dust or being carted off to a recycle center.


This is not a pretty story but it needed to be told.




In the end no one wins, we complained about China sending dangerous toys to our country - we are not all that pure and regal either.

(To be continued..)



China not fighting off e-waste nightmare

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

26 minutes ago



GUIYU, China - The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.




For five years, environmentalists and the media have highlighted the danger to Chinese workers who dismantle much of the world's junked electronics. Yet a visit to this southeastern Chinese town regarded as the heartland of "e-waste" disposal shows little has improved. In fact, the problem is growing worse because of China's own contribution.



China now produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year, said Jamie Choi, a toxics campaigner with Greenpeace China in Beijing. That adds up to roughly 5 million television sets, 4 million fridges, 5 million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million personal computers, according to Choi.



"Most e-waste in China comes from overseas, but the amount of domestic e-waste is on the rise," he said.



This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.



International agreements and European regulations have made a dent in the export of old electronics to China, but loopholes — and sometimes bribes — allow many to skirt the requirements. And only a sliver of the electronics sold get returned to manufacturers such as Dell and Hewlett Packard for safe recycling.



Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation's skies and rivers.



Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to come by. However, experts agree that it is overwhelmingly a problem of the developing world. They estimate about 70 percent of the 20-50 million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped in China, with most of the rest going to India and poor African nations.



According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is ten times cheaper to export e-waste than to dispose of it at home.



Imports slip into China despite a Chinese ban and Beijing's ratification of the Basel Convention, an international agreement that outlaws the trade. Industry monitor Ted Smith said one U.S. exporter told him all that was needed to get shipments past Chinese customs officials was a crisp $100 bill taped to the inside of each container.



"The central government is well aware of the problems but has been unable or unwilling to really address it," said Smith, senior strategist with the California-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, which focuses on the electronics industry.



The European Union bans such exports, but Smith and others say smuggling is rife, largely due to the lack of measures to punish rule breakers. China, meanwhile, allows the import of plastic waste and scrap metal, which many recyclers use as an excuse to send old electronics there.



And though U.S. states increasingly require that electronics be sent to collection and recycling centers, even from those centers, American firms can send the e-waste abroad legally because Congress hasn't ratified the Basel Convention.



The results are visible on the streets of Guiyu, where the e-waste industry employs an estimated 150,000 people. Shipping containers of computer parts, old video games, computer screens, cell phones and electronics of all kinds, from ancient to nearly new, are dumped onto the streets and sorted for dismantling and melting.



Valuable metals such as copper, gold, and silver are removed through melting and acid baths, while steel is torn out for scrap and plastic is ground into pellets for other use.



This is big business for those who control the trade. Luxury sedans are parked in front of elaborate mansions in downtown Guiyu, adorned with fancy names such as "Hall of Southernly Peace."



Many of those who do the dirty work are migrants from poorer parts of China, too desperate or uninformed to care about the health risks.



In the town of Nanyang, a few minutes drive from Guiyu, a middle-aged couple from the inland province of Hunan sorts wiring in a mud-floored shack. Such work, including melting down motherboards, earns them about $100 per month, said the husband, who answered reluctantly and wouldn't give his name.



Many houses double as smelter and home. Gas burners shaped like blacksmith's forges squat beside the front doors, their flues rising several stories to try to dissipate the toxic smoke.



Nonetheless, a visitor soon develops a throbbing headache and metallic taste in the mouth. The groundwater has long been too polluted for human consumption. The amount of lead in the river sediment is double European safety levels, according to the Basel Action Network, an environmental group.



Yet, aside from trucking in drinking water, the health risks seem largely ignored. Fish are still raised in local ponds, and piles of ash and plastic waste sit beside rice paddies and dikes holding in the area's main Lianjiang river.



Chemicals, including mercury, fluorine, barium, chromium, and cobalt, that either leach from the waste or are used in processing, are blamed for skin rashes and respiratory problems. Contamination can take decades to dissipate, experts say, and long-term health effects can include kidney and nervous system damage, weakening of the immune system and cancer.



"Of course, recycling is more environmentally sound," said Wu Song, a former local university student who has studied the area. "But I wouldn't really call what's happening here recycling."



Those who control the business in Guiyu are hostile to outside scrutiny. Reporters visiting the area with a Greenpeace volunteer were trailed by tough-looking youths who notified local police, leading to a six-hour detention for questioning.



Government departments from the provincial to township levels refused to answer questions. The central government's Environmental Protection Agency did not reply to faxed questions.



Guiyu faces growing competition from other cities, notably Taizhou, about 450 miles up the coast in Zhejiang province. Meanwhile, collection yards have sprung up on the fringes of most major cities. The owners sell what they can to recyclers — most of them unregulated — and simply dump the rest.



Efforts to recycle e-waste safely in China have struggled. Few people bring in waste, because the illegal operators pay more.



"We're not even breaking even," said Gao Jian, marketing director of New World Solid Waste in the northeastern city of Qingdao. "These guys pay more because they don't need expensive equipment, but their methods are really dangerous."



The city of Shanghai opened a dedicated e-waste handling center last year, but most residents and companies prefer the "guerrilla" junkers who ride through neighborhoods on flatbed tricycles ringing bells to attract customers, said Yu Jinbiao of the Shanghai Electronic Products Repair Service Association, a government-backed industry federation.



"Those guerrillas are convenient and offer a good price," Yu said, "so there is a big market for them."




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_re_as/china_toxic_electronics

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Transform Your Life

Transform your Life - by Pastor Will Bowen



Your thoughts create your world and your words indicate your thoughts. When you eliminate complaining from your life will you enjoy happier relationships, better health and greater prosperity. This simple program helps you set a trap for your own negativity and redirect your mind towards a more positive and rewarding life.



http://acomplaintfreeworld.org/



How it Works?



Scientists believe it takes 21 days to form a new habit and complaining is habitual for most of us.



Read More:

http://acomplaintfreeworld.org/howitworks.html








The Emergence of Positive Psychology: The Building of a Field of Dreams

Shane J. Lopez, PhD

University of Kansas



"Build it and they will come. Build it and they will come."

A similar eerie directive echoed in Ray Consella's mind in the popular movie,
"Field of Dreams." An epiphany occurred when Consella realized that the building of a baseball field in rural Iowa would open a metaphysical door to his past and his future.



Dr. Martin Seligman experienced a similar epiphany that occurred in his garden and was brought about by the profound words of a child, his daughter Nikki. In a 1999 speech, Dr. Seligman recounted the experience that changed his view of parenting and psychology and he concluded the following:



Raising Nikki would be about taking the strength that she had just shown--I call it seeing into the soul--naming it, nurturing it, reinforcing it, helping her to lead her life around it and let it buffer against the weaknesses and the vicissitudes. The most important thing, the most general thing I learned, was that psychology was half-baked, literally half-baked. We had baked the part about mental illness; we had baked the part about repair of damage...The other side's unbaked, the side of strength, the side of what we're good at.



Positive psychology is the other side. It is the scientific pursuit of optimal human functioning and the building of a field focusing on human strength and virtue. It builds on the bench science and research methods that shed light on the "dark side" of human functioning, and it opens the door to understanding prevention and health promotion. Dr. Seligman (1998) noted:




http://www.apa.org/apags/profdev/pospsyc.html

Problmes In Life.

Problmes In Life.

The serious problems in life, however, are never fully solved....

The meaning and purpose of a problem seem to lie not

in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly.

(C.G. Jung, Stages of Life, CW 8, § 771