BAN to make regular use of GPS-based tracking devices to monitor e-recyclers

By Paul Ploumis

ScrapMonster Author

SPOKANE (Scrap Monster): The watchdog organization Basel Action Network (BAN) has decided to make regular use of GPS-based tracking devices to monitor the operations of e-Stewards certified electronics recyclers. The move comes amidst reported incidents of illegal e-waste exports out of the country in violation of international trade agreements. The certification norms prohibit recyclers from exporting certain types of electronic scrap into developing countries.

The BAN news release claimed that e-Stewards certification is the only electronics recycling certification standard that uses GPS tracking nology to verify the operations of certified recyclers. According to the organization, the development will provide large-scale etechlectronics recyclers with an opportunity to establish that their operations are not in violation of any agreed principle or requirements set by the certification standard. Sarah Westervelt, policy director of the e-Stewards program noted that the new development will make it difficult for unscrupulous recyclers to ship hazardous e-waste out of the country. It must be noted that the recent recycler meet organized by BAN had welcomed and fully endorsed the idea of placing embedded GPS-tracking devices into used electronics to track its journey.

In a bid to track the e-waste from recycling locations, BAN had placed cell-phone sized GPS tracker devices to almost 205 non-functioning printers and monitors and dropped them at various locations within the US during the second half of 2015. The organization has been tracking these devices since then. The agency had recently come out with the alarming information that majority of the tracked e-waste had landed up in recycling yards in Hong Kong which use primitive methods of destruction and recovery.

According to BAN report, out of 205 tracked devices passed through the hands of 168 identifiable recyclers, over 45% were involved in a chain leading to exports to third world countries. Also, 87% of the exported devices went to Asia, 3% to Africa, 1% to the Middle East, 1% to Latin America and Caribbean region. The report notes that 53% of LCDs studied were exported, 30% of printers and 18% of CRTs. The majority of these exports went to informal electronic disassembly operations in Hong Kong’s New Territories area.

Recently, an operation carried out by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (EPD) in partnership with other agencies at a number of open waste recycling facilities had revealed illegal collection and storage of large quantities of illegal chemical waste at nine recycling sites in Hung Lung Hang in the North District in the New Territories. Nearly 3,500 LCD televisions including more than 1,100 large sized waste LCDs were seized during the operation titled ‘Operation Dawn’. According to EPD estimates, the export market value of the seized devices amounted to not less than HK$2 million.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), nearly 60-90% of the world’s electronic waste is traded or dumped illegally, mostly to countries in Africa and Asia.

About Basel Action Network

Founded in 1997, the Basel Action Network is a 501(c)3 charitable organization of the United States, based in Seattle, WA. BAN is the world's only organization focused on confronting the global environmental justice and economic inefficiency of toxic trade and its devastating impacts. Today, BAN serves as the information clearinghouse on the subject of waste trade for journalists, academics, and the general public.