Puddle Jumping in DC

Where Is Your Old Cell Phone? U.S. E-Waste Across the Globe

Originally published on Care2.

Were you one of the millions of Americans to get an upgrade to one of your electronic devices this holiday season?

You know you are not alone, of course. According to the Electronics Take Back Coalition, consumers in the United States will replace approximately 400 million consumer gadgets this year.

Tiny Fraction of Obsolete Electronics Are Recycled
Do you have any idea what happens to all the old cell phones, laptops, vcr players and other obsolete electronics we discard every year? Approximately 14 percent of those devices will be “recycled,” but e-waste recycling in the United States usually means exporting electronics to developing countries and what actually happens to the materials and the workers at recycling facilities is poorly regulated and sometimes completely unknown.

Some electronics will be broken down to recover valuable metals from its components and some will get a second life in the importing country’s consumer market. David Biello of Scientific American discovered this when he covered the climate talks in South Africa this fall. The cell phone he rented during his visit was clearly used, still bearing a photo of a woman of European descent and the contact information of the previous user’s friends.

Earlier this year, a team of MIT researchers set out to find out what happens to all our old electronics by turning them into little investigative reporters that send data and images back to the team from all over the world. They outfitted the devices with GPS units and programed them to send coordinates and video images back every 15 minutes. The video below provides a snapshot of the data collected so far.

  

Poorly Regulated E-Waste Recycling Is Really Toxin Exporting
While only the working electronics sent back video images, the team also tracked broken and useless e-waste destined for resource recovery. According to Backtalk:

“One reason why obsolete electronics are transported over large distances is the sparse geographical distribution of dedicated recycling facilities. For example, only thirteen facilities in the world are certified to smelt and recycle the cathode ray tubes of old television sets – and all are in Asia. For these components, environmentally sound recycling is critical, since the glass of these TVs and monitors can contain up to 20% lead by weight.”

E-waste recycling internationally is a crude and dangerous industry. Workers often break apart electronics with hammers or even by heating components to melt out valuable material, releasing toxins with little regard to their own health or the environment. And it’s not just the recycling workers whose health is harmed.

“A study published last year in Environmental Health Perspectives found that children in Guiyu [a town in China were e-waste is recycled] had lead levels 50 percent higher than those in surrounding villages and 50 percent higher than safety limits set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lead is known to cause brain damage.” (Scientific American)

Take Action: Stop global toxic dumping! Make it illegal to send toxic e-waste to developing nations.

What You Can Do to Stop Toxic E-Waste Exporting

1) Definitely recycle your old electronics, but choose a responsible recycler. Approximately 85 percent of e-waste ends up in U.S. landfills where toxins leach into the local environment and valuable minerals are lost. e-Stewards certified recyclers are committed to responsible recycling that doesn’t export toxins to developing countries.

See the Electronics Take Back Coalition’s guide to e-recycling for more suggestions. (And yes, delete your data first.)

2) Support electronics take-back programs and laws to require manufactures to implement them. The consumer electronics industry is extremely profitable, in part by hoisting the cost of disposal of their products onto the general public. In response to popular demand, companies like Apple and HP will take back your old electronics, sometimes for discounts on new purchases.

3) Support federal and state legislation to prevent e-waste exporting. Several states have passed laws to regulate the disposal of e-waste and bills have been introduced in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. Find out about state legislation and support the bi-partisan Responsible Electronics Recycling Act of 2011 (H.R.2284 and S.1270).

 

Photo credit: Old phones by flickr user CannedTuna, used by Creative Commons license.

Gas in the water, toxins in the baby shampoo, coal ash in Lake Michigan!

Found myself writing about chemicals out of place. Recently on Care2:

My Water’s On Fire Tonight [Video]

Recent reports reveal that hydraulic fracturing, a form of natural gas drilling that involves injecting toxin-laden water deep underground, may have been responsible for earthquakes in England and Oklahoma and the Environmental Protection agency announced that it will investigate the drilling method’s impact on drinking water. . . Read more.

Toxic Chemicals in U.S. Baby Shampoo, Why?

It’s pretty clear that formaldehyde, used to embalm corpses, is not a health elixir. What’s less clear is why Johnson & Johnson thinks it’s a good idea to put this carcinogen in baby shampoo. . . Read more.

Powerplant Mudslide Dumps Coal Ash into Lake Michigan

Just weeks after the U.S. Senate voted to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate the disposal of coal ash, what’s left after coal is burned in a power plant, a mudslide on the banks of Lake Michigan sends tons of the stuff into a drinking water source for 10 million people. . . Read more.

The one where I discuss football, sort of

Well, it does take a major solar array on a stadium to get me to blog about football, but that's what the Redskins recently installed here in the DC metro area. So I wrote not one, but two articles about it:

Washington DC’s Football Team Goes Solar – VIDEO

... starting this fall, Washington Redskins' FedEx Field will draw 20% of game day power from their newly installed parking lot solar array. On off days, solar will provide 100% of the stadium's power.

read more on Care2

And then I discuss possible motives on the part of Redskins owner Dan Snyder:

Redskins Go Solar at FedEx Field with NFL's Largest Installation

Love him or hate him, you know Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder makes shrewd business decisions. That's among the reasons the new solar panels at FedEx Field are turning heads. Snyder entered a contract this summer with...

read more on Examiner.com

Now back to our regularly scheduled programing . . .

Make a Difference Monday: News in Sustainable Shopping and Hydrating

If you missed any of my recent Care2 posts, you can catch up here.  Follow me on twitter @studiojmm and I'll let you know when a new causes blog is posted.

Probable Cancer-causing Chemical Found in Drinking Water of 31 of 35 U.S. Cities Tested

Hexavalent chromium, the chemical made famous by the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich, is in the news again because a U.S. environmental organization detected the probable carcinogen in 31 of the 35 cities where it tested the drinking water. Environmental Working Group found concentrations of chromium in public drinking water supplies that ranged from 1/2 to 200 times what would be allowable by the state of California if a proposed chromium safety limit goes into effect . . . (more)

Is Your Holiday Shopping Exposing You to Dangerous BPA?

Every time you handle a store receipt that was printed on thermal paper using bisphenol-a (BPA), a little bit of this estrogen-mimicking chemical rubs off onto your fingers. When you put it in your wallet, it rubs off onto other receipts and onto your money. Some scientists theorize that exposure from powdery residue off store receipts may be a more important pathway of exposure than the much more high-profile presence of BPA in plastic drinking bottles . . . (more)

Misleading Eco-labels on Seafood Muddy the Waters on Sustainable Fishing

Looking to buy a filet of fish for your evening meal but forgot your wallet guide to sustainable seafood? Well, don't depend on the labels at the seafood counter or on the package to tell you if your dinner is environmentally-friendly or not, says Food & Water Watch in a new report on seafood labeling . . . (more)

Make a Difference Monday: Factory Farms and the 40th Anniversary of EPA

That's what I was blogging on at Care2 this past week.

Data Shows 20 Percent Growth in Factory Farming In Past 5 Years

A new interactive web tool from Food & Water Watch provides a dramatic illustration of the increasingly consolidated animal agriculture industry in the United States. The advocacy group mapped USDA livestock census data from 2002 and 2007, providing a new way for concerned consumers to explore the origin of meat and dairy foods in the United States. (more)

10 Ways EPA Has Improved Our Lives, An Anniversary Retrospective

To mark the 40th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Aspen Institute convened environmental thought leaders to develop a report on 10 ways EPA has strengthened America. (more)

 

Make a Difference Monday: From Tigers to Triclosan

If you missed any of my Care2 posts from last week, you can catch up here.  Follow me on twitter @studiojmm and I'll let you know when a new causes blog is posted.

Hope for Tigers and Tree Frogs

When the International Council for Science listed observing and innovation among their top 5 challenges to sustainability, they may not have been thinking specifically about tigers and tree frogs. It's hopeful, however, that scientists this week announced innovative tracking and captive breeding breakthroughs for those two species respectively that offer hope for their survival. (67 comments)

Chesapeake Bay Polluted by 568 Million Chickens

According to a report by Environment America, the 568 million chickens raised on the Delmarva Peninsula — many of them owned by Perdue — generate an estimated 1.1 billion pounds of chicken litter every year. That manure in rainwater runoff was cited as a major contributor to the Chesapeake Bay's pollution problems in a report that explored how giant corporate factory-farms pollute waterways in the United States. (140 comments)

Natural Gas Fracking Threatens Drinking Water (Video)

This weekend 60 Minutes aired an investigative story about the dangers of a largely-unregulated method of extracting natural gas from shale miles below the Earth's surface – known as "fracking" – and the dangers it poses to drinking water, our health, and the environment. (36 comments)

Georgia-Pacific Commits to Protecting 11 Endangered Forests in the U.S. Southeast

Several environmental groups are cheering today over paper giant Georgia-Pacific's commitment not to purchase timber from environmentally sensitive areas and to discourage landowners from clearing hardwood forests to plant pine plantations. The commitment comes after a multi-year campaign by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Dogwood Alliance, and Rainforest Action Network. (47 comments)

Science Shows Antibacterial Chemicals are Dangerous to People and Environment

Triclosan and Triclocarbon are killers. That's their job. The antimicrobial chemicals are added to thousands of consumer products – from soap to toothpaste, public changing tables and even shoes – specifically to kill bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately, when the soap and other products wash down our drains, Triclosan and Triclocarbon end up in the aquatic environment and even on farms around the country where they keep doing their job, killing things. (140 comments)

Make a Difference Monday: Polar Bears and Indian Owls

That's what I was writing about this weekend at Care2.

Court Orders Obama to Reconsider Polar Bear's Endangered Status

A federal court ruled on Thursday that the Obama administration has until December 23 to explain why the polar bear should not be listed as an "endangered" species and should instead be protected under the less-stringent "threatened" status... (more)

Harry Potter Blamed for India's Illegal Owl Trade

Is the world's most famous boy-wizard responsible for a major wildlife trafficking crisis in India?  That's the story running in the news media this weekend after Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh commented on a new report... (more)

Cleaning up Industrial Boilers and Preventing Oil Drilling in the Rainforest

For your Make-A-Difference Monday action pleasure: 

Tell EPA to Clean Up Polluting Commercial and Industrial Boilers, Deadline Monday

In the basements of office and apartment buildings, and in pulp and paper plants, chemical refineries, and other factories across the United States, tens of thousands of commercial and industrial boilers burn natural gas, wood, or coal to produce steam for heating or to pressurize machinery. In the process, they emit mercury, lead, cadmium, hydrogen chloride, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, dioxin and furans, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a regulation this spring to reduce those pollutants by 50 percent. You have until Monday, August 23 to weigh in.

Read more at Care2 . . .

Ecuador's Yasuni National Park Preserved from Oil Drilling in Historic UN Agreement

In a first-of-its kind agreement, Ecuador has pledged to not to develop the 850 million barrels of crude oil under Yasuni National Park for the next 10 years in return for $3.6 billion from the United Nations. The park is one of the most biodiverse expanses of rainforest in the world, a single hectare of which boasts more species of trees than in all of North America.

Read more, including a petition calling on Chevron to clean up decades old pollution in Ecuador, at Care2 . . .

When the bubble has holes: kids and toxic chemicals

In the tube, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

It's hard to protect kids from all the dangers out there in the world.  A few years ago, I remember a radio interview exchange from the mom who wrote the book Free Range Kids about how she was told, in the uproar about her letting her pre-teen take the subway alone, that a parent's most important job was to protect their child.  She thought, 'No, my most important job is to raise a caring, competent person and teaching them to face the world and it's dangers is going to be part of that.'

While we can work with kids to teach common-sense strategies for managing public transportation on their own, how do we deal with the toxic chemicals their little bodies come across every single day? 

The following blog post came out of a playground exchange the day I took the above photo:

Originally posted on Care2 in Environment & Wildlife as

Keeping Toxic Chemicals Out of Our Bodies

"Do your kids have allergies? . . . Oh, you're so lucky. So many kids have allergies these days. . . Their little souls agree to come here but their bodies can't take it. This world is so messed up."

That's pretty much how a recent playground conversation with a neighborhood grandmother went. We struck up a conversation after my toddler daughter began to imitate her granddaughter's cough (good time for a pre-flu season lesson about coughing into your sleeve). We ended up discussing the causes of the marked increase in childhood environmental and food allergies.