EPA Lets Electronic Waste Flow
Freely, GAO Report Says
By Juliet Eilperin
September
17, 2008
The
Environmental Protection Agency has done little to curb the export of discarded
electronic products containing hazardous waste, much of which ends up in poorly
regulated countries and harms the environment and public health, the Government
Accountability Office concluded in a report being released today.
The 63-page
report—commissioned by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard L.
Berman (D-Calif.)—is a scathing critique of the EPA's
failure to control the export of used electronic equipment, which often is sent
to China, India and other countries to be dismantled under unsafe conditions.
"It's
a really inadequate situation that we've allowed to continue," said
Berman, whose panel is holding a hearing on the issue today. "We have a
regulation where, as far as I can tell, there's no effort to enforce it."
EPA
spokesman Timothy Lyons took issue with the report, saying the agency is
working hard to enforce a January 2007 rule that requires the EPA to oversee
the export of cathode-ray tubes. "In the 18 months since the CRT rule went
into effect, EPA initiated 20 investigations, recently issued one complaint and
entered into one settlement,"
But it was
GAO officials who alerted the EPA to violations by Jet Ocean Technology, a
company in
"
Toxic
materials in electronics do not leach out while the products remain intact, but
once they are disassembled, the ingredients can enter the air and water. A 2007
study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that children in Guiyu, a Chinese village where discarded electronics are
dismantled, have lead levels in blood that are 50 percent higher than limits
set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Democratic
Reps. Mike Thompson (
"We're
making progress," Thompson said, but "it's really hard to find any
community of interest that says, 'Why don't you develop some laws and regulate
and tell me how to do my business?' "
Thompson
has drafted legislation calling for manufacturers to take more extended responsibility
for their products and requiring manufacturers, retailers and recyclers to
share the task of creating a national program to collect, transport, reuse and
recycle electronic waste. Currently the issue is addressed by a patchwork of
e-waste laws enacted by 16 states and
Parker Bruggs, vice president for environmental affairs for the
Consumer Electronics Association, said manufacturers, retailers, consumers and
governments all must play a role. "Our position is it should be a shared
responsibility among all stakeholders," Bruggs
said. "It's really a resource conservation issue; there are valuable
components in these products that can be reused."
The report
said some
Some
environmental groups, such as the Electronics TakeBack
Coalition, argue that the
Casey
Harrell, an international toxics campaigner for the advocacy group Greenpeace,
said policymakers and consumers must also pressure manufacturers to make more
environmentally friendly products in the first place.