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- From: E-Scrap News <newsletter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:37:51 -0500 (EST)
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E-Scrap News
November 19, 2009
In This Issue:
E-SCRAP METAL PRICES REMAIN HIGH
E-CYCLE WASHINGTON RECALCULATES COSTS
NEWSBITS
REPORT: E-WASTE COMES BACK TO BITE THE HAND THAT FED IT
INTERPOL GOES AFTER ILLEGAL E-WASTE EXPORTERS
RESEARCH GAUGES DEMAND FOR CRT GLASS
76 PERCENT SAY RECYCLING THE ANSWER TO E-SCRAP
1 | E-scrap metal prices remain high
A weak dollar has led to rising speculative interest in commodities. As a
result, the value of the recoverable
metals found in obsolete electronics is rising.
A falling dollar pushes many investors to look for alternatives to
equities and bonds. In addition, many
of the commodities traded on exchanges, including base and precious metals, are
dollar nominated. Thus, a
declining dollar becomes an investment plus.
The value of many metals are at, or near, their record high levels,
including copper being worth nearly
$3 per pound ? a 14-month high ? and gold recently attaining a record high of
over $1,100 per ounce. Silver's
price of over $17 per ounce is also close to a record.
As a result, the value of various e-scrap materials, such as printed
circuit boards from computers and
copper yolks from computer monitors, has been selling at more attractive prices
in recent weeks.
2 | E-Cycle Washington recalculates costs
E-Cycle Washington this week stated that, in 2010, the reasonable cost for
collecting and processing covered
electronics would drop to 30 cents per pound, with the additional five cents
per pound administrative fee
remaining unchanged. Previously, the cost for "reasonable collection,
transportation, processing and recycling
of covered electronic products" under the state's electronics recycling program
was 45 cents per pound, plus the
nickel per pound administrative fee.
In September, the Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) issued a
notice of intent proposing to
lower the reasonable cost to 24 cents per pound, and gathered comments and
other applicable information in making
the decision. Ecology received only three comments on the notice, according to
the department.
The cost, the DOE says, is used solely to "establish the amount of
money that a recycling plan would
receive or need to pay based on covering their share, based on weight, of
recycling covered electronic products."
More information about the Final Determination issuance is available at the
E-Cycle Washington Web site.
E-Cycle Washington additionally announced its collection numbers for
October 2009, taking in 3.4 million
pounds of computers, monitors and TVs, bringing the program's total to 33
million pounds for the first ten months
of the year.
3 | NewsBits
The Basel Convention turned 20 this week, with the executive secretary of the
international treaty estimating
that there are six billion tons of e-waste out there waiting to be handled ...
Samsung Electronics America has
collected and recycling 12 million pounds of e-scrap in 2009, as part of its
Samsung Recycling Direct program,
which launched in October 2008. Under the program, Samsung has over 200
permanent drop-off centers spanning all 50
U.S. states ... The Solid Waste Association of North America, SWANA, is
offering three e-scrap-related e-sessions
in December, giving a discount for those registering for all three ... As part
of its larger greening efforts,
computer giant Dell will soon start shipping two of its products in packaging
made from bamboo ... Oregon E-Cycles
has collected 14.3 million pounds of covered electronic goods for the first
three quarters of 2009 and 4.81
million pounds in the Q3 alone. The 14.3 million pounds collected so far
surpasses the 12.2 million pounds that
was the minimum set for the year.
4 | Report: E-waste comes back to bite the hand that fed it
A new report out of New Zealand addresses the global environmental impacts of
electronic waste processing,
claiming that it would be in the best interest of an e-scrap producing country
to manage its waste properly, in
order to keep resultant toxins out of imported manufactured goods and
foodstuffs from the places that process
e-waste.
Entitled, "E-waste: An assessment of global production and
environmental impacts," the report offers a
detailed review of the growing e-waste waste stream and its environmental
impact, citing gaudy numbers from
earlier studies, such as the estimated one billion computers expected to be
retired in the next five years.
The report notes that, not only does a majority of the e-waste produced
end up in the general waste
stream, but also that 80 percent of e-scrap collected is "exported to poor
countries," where the environmental
impact from crude processing of the equipment is bleak. As evidenced from
numerous studies cited in the report,
the impact on the infamous recycling operations in and surrounding the Guiyu,
China area are widespread, with lead
found in high concentrations in drinking water downstream, as well as findings
of air pollutants.
Further citing reports of lead contamination in manufactured goods and
foodstuffs produced in China, the
author concludes that "rich countries have self-interest in mitigating the
negative environmental effects of
e-waste, because it will negatively affect the quality and quantity of food and
manufactured goods that are
imported from poor countries."
The report, written by Brett H. Robinson, with the Department of Soil
and Physical Sciences at Lincoln
University in Canterbury, New Zealand, was published in the December issue of
the journal Science of The Total
Environment.
5 | Interpol goes after illegal e-waste exporters
International police force Interpol is forming a new division, the Global Crime
Group, to help facilitate
communication between governmental environmental agencies around the world, in
the hopes of nabbing more criminals
illegally exporting electronic waste. The new group will be headed by the
U.K.'s Environment Agency (EA) and will
be supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Dutch
Environment Agency VROM.
In particular, the Global Crime Group will be going after "waste
tourists" ? scofflaws visiting the U.K.
posturing as a tourist, but using their stay in the country to buy e-waste and
arrange for its export to the
developing world. "Our intelligence has revealed there is more organized
criminal activity in this area, and has
uncovered some of the techniques they are using to export waste illegally, such
as waste tourists, mislabeling
containers, or mixing in e-waste with other types of recyclable material," an
EA spokesperson said.
"It is essential that we work with our counterparts in other countries
to share intelligence and stamp out
the growing problem of illegal waste exports, said EA chairman Lord Chris Smith
in announcing the operation. "The
group's aim is to tackle an international problem with an international
response."
6 | Research gauges demand for CRT glass
A newly published study analyzing CRT glass recovery aims to pinpoint when the
supply of CRT glass cullet will
outpace the demand.
Titled "Evaluating the Economic Viability of a Material Recovery
System: The Case of Cathode Ray Tube
Glass," the study tracks CRT glass collection, processing and trade across four
geographic areas (Asia,
Europe/Middle East, Latin America and North America) since 1990, and makes
predictions on the amount of CRT
materials to be collected through 2025. While the supply of CRT glass cullet in
all studied areas is expected to
rise to nearly 1,200 tons by 2025, the demand for material will be less than
400 tons.
The report, published in the journal Environmental Science &
Technology, concludes that predicting the
exact year in which supply will exceed demand is not possible, but says it is
likely within the next 10 years,
with the model used by researchers predicting it to occur in 2015.
7 | 76 percent say recycling the answer to e-scrap
Over three quarters of those surveyed in a Pike Research study think that
recycling is the most suitable way to
handle end-of-life electronics. The study of more than 1,000 respondents
additionally found that 37 percent think
that electronics recycling should be free, with 35 percent saying that
electronics should be collected as part of
a curbside recycling collection program.
A mere 14 percent say that consumers should pay for electronics
recycling at point-of-sale, such as
California's advance recycling fee, and only 10 percent support the
producer-responsibility model used in the
other 19 states that have a electronics recycling law on the books.
The report further finds that the average consumer has 2.8 pieces of
unwanted electronic goods in some
kind of storage, and that their estimate for recycling those goods is $12 per
item. That's off from the more than
$20 per single piece of electronics that Pike Research found to be the "true
cost" of recycling.
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