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A Monterey Park company has been caught by federal officials trying to send 32,000 pounds of hazardous waste from old televisions and computer monitors to China in violation of federal environmental regulations. The company, ZKW Trading, attempted to ship two 40-foot containers filled with cathode ray tubes (CRTs) - the video display parts from televisions and computer monitors that are high in lead content - to Hong Kong

A furniture refinishing company has launched a new electronics recycling program to deal with waste electronics generated by furniture remodeling projects. The Refinishing Touch is an Alpharetta, Ga., company that offers on-site furniture refinishing, re-upholstery and armoire modification services to hotel chains and the federal government. Recently the company has conducted armoire modifications for several hotel chains upgrading television sets in guest rooms from CRTs to HD flat panel displays. The company is launching the new program to deal with those discarded displays. The company will guarantee TVs accepted through the program are recycled in compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration and EPA industry standards as well as all applicable local, state and federal laws and regulations. The company also is in the process of gaining no-landfill certification for the program. Waste & Recycling News, 1/13/10.

This portion of the Federal Facilities Environmental Stewardship & Compliance Assistance Center (FedCenter) web site provides resources related to the electronics stewardship program area. This program area addresses the life-cycle management of electronics from procurement to disposal. Links, documents, and case studies are provided for the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC), the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star. Sections include: Regulations, Guidance, and Policy; Supporting Information and Tools; Lessons Learned; Training, Presentations, and Briefings; and Conferences and Events.

Describes the results of an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) into the health, safety, and environmental compliance practices of Federal Prison Industries' (FPI) electronic waste (ewaste) recycling program.

The State of Illinois maintains State and Federal surplus property warehouses, which University of Illinois departments may access.

Answering questions about both e-waste disposal and recycling involves a host of challenges. For example, little information is available to allow a complete assessment of how e-waste ultimately managed. General estimates have been made about the management of cathode ray tubes (CRTs, the only devices where disposal is federally regulated), but little reliable information is available regarding other categories of e-waste. Further, little information is available regarding the total amount of functioning electronics exported to developing countries for legitimate reuse. What is known is that e-waste recycling involves complex processes and it is more costly to recycle e-waste in the United States, where there is a limited recycling infrastructure. It also is known that most consumer electronics manufacturers (who provide the market for material recovery from recycled electronics) have moved overseas.

Four regional Australian councils have adopted a ban on sending electronic waste to landfill, in the hopes that the move will force the federal government to finalize a national recycling scheme. The four councils -- Mosman, Manly, Warringa and Pittwater, which together cover all of Syndey's northern beaches -- have enacted a no-landfill policy effective in January 2010, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

CEH report, Oct. 2006. In the past few years, the storm of complaints about UNICOR's recycling program from prisoners, prison guards, and others has brought these hidden sweatshops into public view. Since 1994, UNICOR has built a lucrative business that employs prisoners to recycle electronic waste (e-waste). A massive array of ewaste is largely hidden from view, as are the workers who handle the waste. Over 100,000 computers become obsolete in the U.S. every day. E-waste includes computers, personal digital assistants, TVs, and other electronic devices. E-waste is a doubleedged sword: it is rich in precious materials that can be recycled, but it also contains a cocktail of hazardous chemicals such as lead, mercury, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and cadmium. This report examines the e-waste recycling programs run by Federal Prison Industries (FPI), a government-owned corporation that does business under the trade name UNICOR.

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Two Democratic U.S. Senators -- Amy Klobuchar of Minn. and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York -- introduced earlier this month legislation aimed at funding R&D efforts to improve to recycle e-waste and develop best practices and innovation in greener design of electronics. The Electronic Device Recycling Research and Development Act, a nearly identical version of which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April, provides almost $85 million over the next three years to help spur the growth of electronics recycling practices in the U.S. The bill, S. 1397, includes four main initiatives: providing grants for R&D into e-waste processes and practices, funding research into environmentally friendly materials for use in electronics, establishing educational curricula for engineering students at all levels to incorporate green design practices into electronics, and publishing a report from the National Academy of Sciences laying out the good and the bad in the current state of electronics recycling.

Hewlett Packard (HP), in collaboration with the Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF), and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa), has launched a groundbreaking initiative to develop sustainable recycling processes to tackle the problem of e-waste in Africa. For the past two years, the initiative has been overseeing a pilot program facility in South Africa and conducting e-waste management assessment studies in both Kenya and Morocco; the goal of the assessments is ultimately to properly determine each country's ability to deal with the e-waste there, whether it arose from electronics that were purchased new within the country and are now reaching their end of life, or from electronics that were shipped illegally from other countries. The project has been examining efforts by both African governments and organizations to safely handle e-waste. The project has been compiling extensive information, such as the policy and legal framework in each country, standard settings for e-waste treatment, organizations and programs already in place to safely process e-waste, and the actual amounts of e-waste present. MediaGlobal article by Shefali Lall, 7/20/09.

6/30/09. Wisconsin businesses, institutions, local governments and organizations involved in recycling and refurbishing unwanted electronics have new tools to help them comply with state and federal regulations and plan successful electronics collection events. Includes information & links to a new WDNR guidance document, which ummarizes requirements that have been in effect since 2007 and includes a flow chart to help electronics handlers determine which regulations apply to them. Also includes links to a document providing tips for hosting a successful electronics recycling event.

Environmental groups and some electronics recyclers are opposed to a federal electronic scrap bill that would allow recyclers to export units to developing countries for repair or refurbishing. Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, introduced House Resolution 2595 in U.S. House of Representatives. The measure is aimed at prohibiting exports of certain types of electronic scrap. But it does not go far enough, according to the Electronics TakeBack Coalition and the Basel Action Network. Waste & Recycling News, 6/2/09.

In this article e-waste governance in the USA will be explored. More specifically, the voluntary collaborative initiatives that are taken at the federal level, in a context where a general regulatory framework is largely absent, will be examined.