U.S. President Calvin Coolidge expounded, “After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world" (Coolidge). The business described by Calvin Coolidge in 1925 has grown and proliferated exponentially in the last eighty years, creating a large amount of technological waste products. The waste has been dumped into landfills, traditionally, but there is a considerable savings to corporations when the waste is shipped overseas. Capitalism beckons to the developing nations around the planet, and for a fee some nations are willing to sacrifice the health of their people and their land. A world-wide market-driven economy is often regulated by agreements that protect the world’s people from dangerous waste produced by global industries. One such protective measure is the Basel Convention, which the United States has refused to ratify. Steps should be taken to ensure the U.S. is brought into compliance with international treaties that regulate the indiscriminate cross-border dumping of electronic waste, both for safety and financial reasons.

Internationally, the Basel Convention was negotiated in Basel, Switzerland in the 1980’s to combat indiscriminate cross-border dumping of waste or improperly managing toxic shipments (“Origins”). In the descriptive web page regarding the origins of the Basel Convention the following is written, “Searching for cheaper ways to get rid of the wastes, ‘toxic traders’ began shipping hazardous waste to developing countries and to Eastern Europe” (“Origins”). When describing the United States’ role, New York Times reporter Susan Moran states, “. . .it is the only industrialized nation that did not ratify the Basel Convention, which prohibits richer nations from exporting hazardous waste to poorer countries” (“Panning” 3).

I am learning to configure and repair computer components; as a result I am becoming more concerned with trying to extend the shrinking lifespan of these electronics. Electronic waste, or e-waste, refers to electronic products being discarded by consumers. As I gain more knowledge regarding the process of recycling computers, or e-cycling, I recognize the immediate need for the U.S. to follow the lead of the world’s other industrialized nations in effective and sensible disposal of discarded computer components.

Opponents of e-waste legislation reform argue that the danger to people and the environment are overstated. In his essay “The Dangers of E-waste Are Exaggerated,” environmental analyst Dana Joel Gattuso asserts the following:

Nor is e-waste growing at a rapid rate. National Safety Council (NSC) data show that the number of discarded computers will . . . begin to decline [after 2005]. While improved technology can quickly make machines obsolete, it can also extend the lifespan of the next generation of computers. More powerful microchips will soon provide machines with much greater capacity. (Gattuso 2)

Gordon Moore, co-founder of microchip powerhouse Intel stated in Moore’s Law that the computing power of processors double every eighteen months; the processing power is based upon the number of transistors that can be tightly packed on silicon chips (Shah. Cf. Carroll 67-68). Agam Shah, a reporter for the IDG News Service in San Francisco reports twenty million dollars has been requested from the U.S. government to begin concentrated research on “technologies, including carbon nanotubes, quantum computing and massively multicore computers that could improve,[sic] and replace current transistor technology” (Shah). In stark contrast to the claim by Gattuso, the computers of today will not only be outclassed and useless, but the future generations of machines will become obsolete at an even greater pace as the silicon chip itself is replaced by technologies that will shattered the growth rate that has held place for decades.

The next argument proposed by the opposition to legislation reform of e-waste is that computer manufacturers should govern themselves. Without regulatory interference, it is difficult to envision a profit-minded business choosing to process each ton of e-waste at a cost of “$500 to recycle,” as Gattuso states, “it costs only $40 to landfill” (Gattuso). National Geographic writer Chris Carroll summarizes the current government policy in his article “High Tech Trash,” “’The U.S. approach’, says Matthew Hale, EPA solid waste program director, ‘is instead to encourage responsible recycling by working with the industry—for instance, with a ratings system that rewards environmentally sound products with a seal of approval’” (qtd. in Carroll 74). The result of the laissez-faire approach is a greater portion of e-waste sent to domestic recyclers is shunted overseas to slowly developing nations. E-waste is being sent to China, India, Kenya, and other countries with lower environmental standards and working conditions for processing, often illegally. Uncontrolled burning, disassembly, and disposal are causing environmental and health problems, including occupational safety and health effects among those directly involved, due to the methods of processing the waste (Carroll 67-80).

The most important argument against e-waste legislation reform is the cost. Opponents have argued that the great direct financial savings to companies when electronic waste is placed into landfills is difficult to give up in favor of costly e-cycling. However, there is a third less discussed option that is much cheaper and popular than landfill dumping or e-cycling. “For the West,” reports Chris Bodeen, a Associated Press reporter, “where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it’s as much as 10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries” (Bodeen 1).

One argument for the reform of e-waste legislation is that the United States can reverse direction on the treacherously slippery slope it has gone down by shirking responsibility for deadly refuse that is being produced at alarming rates. The U.S. is not only poisoning developing nations, but acting as the primary source of contaminated goods which are then imported back into the United States (Fairclough). Gordon Fairclough, correspondent for the Wall Street Journal explains the cycle in the following:

For lead, the trip to China from the U.S. typically goes like this: U.S. consumers and businesses send their old electronics to recycling firms—often by way of innocuous recycling drives. Some of those firms then sell the electronics to dealers in the U.S., who sell them to dealers in China. Chinese companies buy the e-waste and strip lead and other re-sellable materials from it—often discarding harmful materials along the way, adding to local pollution. Those firms then sell the recovered lead to alloy makers like Ms. Liu, who provide it to Chinese manufacturers. The lead makes its way—sometimes at toxic levels—into trinkets sold to consumers in the U.S. (Fairclough 1)

While not much has been done nationally, the Federal government is beginning to follow the example of some states. The U.S. Congress is considering a number of electronic waste bills including the National Computer Recycling Act introduced by Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA). This bill has continually stalled, however. The main idea of the bill is “to establish a grant and fee program through the Environmental Protection Agency to encourage and promote the recycling of used computers and to promote the development of a national infrastructure for the recycling of used computers, and for other purposes” (“H.R.425”).

The most important argument in favor of e-waste legislation reform is that financial benefits can be gained when consistently positive business practices are enforced by aligning U.S. policy with the international treaties that promote safe e-waste handling. Manufacturers need legislation that mandates accepting responsibility for the environmental footprint and the safety of the products they are creating. Products need to be made with less toxic materials, so that the equipment can be more easily reused and recycled. Companies can be shown that upfront investment in a more eco-friendly process can be beneficial for the profit margin “by avoiding regulatory fines, averting shareholder complaints and lawsuits, and catering to the demands of customers who want to use greener products” (Moran 1). American manufacturers are anticipating U.S. compliance with strict laws already in place through the world, so they are rolling out products to meet the most rigorous standards. In New York Times reporter Susan Moran’s article “Panning E-waste for Gold”, Mark Newton, the head of Dell's environmental affairs group on product design states concisely, "When you're a global company, you need to have a global solution” (qtd. in Moran 1). In the same article, Hewlett-Packard’s manager for corporate environmental strategies, John Frey asserted, “We must have a valid business reason for doing things, not just an environmental reason” (qtd. in Moran 2)

E-cycling is also proving to be lucrative to at least one major electronics corporation. Each month Hewlett-Packard’s 200,000-square-foot recycling centers in Nashville, TN and Roseville, CA, combine to examine, sort, and recycle 1.5 million pounds of electronic waste “ore” (Moran 1). Workers collect “8 to 10 ounces of gold, silver, palladium and other precious metals per ton of ‘ore’, compared with 6 ounces per ton in a typical extractive mine” (Moran 1). Just as e-waste is shipped to the far corners of the world to impact the corporate bottom line at the expense of sustainable living conditions and human lives, major international companies are seeing the impact of wise legislative decisions and are trying to get ahead of the curve to avoid potentially debilitating penalties.

The U.S. government is lagging severely and perhaps the purchasing power of the consumer culture will allow healthy ideas about recycling and reuse to flourish. The tremendous evidence of necessary federal legislation is largely dismissed by Washington, D.C. A government predicated on corporate kick backs and war machines appears to have no time to recognize global problems that unite nations rather than divide them. The brash actions America takes on the world scale is creating serious consequences. Global water shortages, ever shrinking space, and ever growing populations will soon terrorize Americans, just as surely as the staggering oil prices and energy worries torment psyches today. The implementation of laws governing the processing of e-waste will benefit manufacturers and consumers both environmentally and financially, with the coming decades a promise of a world that will dictate foresight and economy.

Works Cited

Bodeen, Christopher. "China's E-waste Nightmare Worsening." ABC News. 18 Nov. 2007.30                                        Apr. 2008

          .

Carroll, Chris. "High Tech Trash." National Geographic Jan. 2008: 66-80.

Coolidge, Calvin. "History - ‘...The Chief Business of the American People is Business’." ASNE 01 Aug. 2001. 28 Apr 2008 <http://www.asne.org/kiosk/editor/00.aug/ottaway2.htm>.

Fairclough, Gordon. "China: Lead Toxins Take a Global Round Trip." Wall Street Journal 12 July 2007. 30 Apr. 2008       .

Gattuso, Dana Joel. "The Dangers of E-waste Are Exaggerated." Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. New River Community Coll., Dublin, VA. 30 Apr. 2008

          .

Moran, Susan. "Panning E-waste for Gold." New York Times 17 May 2006. 30 Apr. 2008 .

Basel Convention. "Origins of the Convention." Basel Convention. 20 Mar. 2008. 30 Apr. 2008 .

Shah, Agam. "Scientists Ponder the Successor to Moore's Law." PC World 16 Feb.  2008. 30 Apr. 2008 

.

United States. Cong. U.S. House Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Environmental and Hazardous Materials. H.R. 425 [109th]: National Computer Recycling Act. Washington: GovTrack.us, 2005. 30 Apr. 2008

.