CLEANER CLEANUP.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Out of sight, out of mind may be OK for some of the stuff that ends up in Lane County's landfill.

But that approach is a definite no-no for old computer systems, television sets, VCRs, cell phones, fluorescent lights and other electronic equipment.

These popular gadgets contain lots of hazardous materials - among them mercury, lead and, especially in older equipment, polychlorinated bi-phenyls, or PCBs - that can endanger human and animal health and pollute water and soil if they're junked at the landfill.

A picture tube - technically known as a cathode ray tube, or CRT - from a television or computer monitor can contain as much as 10 pounds of lead. Human exposure to lead can cause serious health conditions, including mental retardation, stunted growth and organ failure.

In recent years, as knowledge of these dangers grew in the United States, businesses sprang up to collect millions of outdated electronic devices and ship them to Asia for recycling or disposal.

However, environmental groups such as the Basel Action Network, an international network of activists based in Seattle and devoted to preventing trade in toxic waste, have documented that well over half of this country's obsolete electronics - often referred to as "e-waste" - end up being dumped in rural villages in China and other Asian countries.

There, villagers scavenge them for recoverable gold, copper and other metals, often burning wires that release poisonous gases in the process.

The computer carcasses pollute the landscape, leaching toxins into the soil and water and allegedly causing health problems that range from breathing difficulties to leukemia.

Outcry over that calamity has prompted other U.S. businesses to form to deal with e-waste responsibly, and Lane County's Waste Management Division has linked up with a couple of them to try to ensure that discarded electronics here neither end up in the landfill nor are foisted off onto Third World countries.

The county recently began an electronics recycling program that lets individuals and businesses pay a small fee to turn in their old equipment by appointment at the Glenwood Central Receiving Station.

In the first two weekends of collection, 221 households brought in enough electronics to fill a 48-foot trailer, waste management specialist Pete Chism said. Nearly 30 companies and other organizations - including one school district - also brought in obsolete equipment during the first nonresidential collection, on Wednesday, Chism said.

Some working equipment goes to the local Computer Reuse and Recycling Center, which refurbishes systems and distributes them to people who otherwise cannot afford them.

But the bulk of the no-longer-wanted items go to Earth Protection Services Inc., an Arizona-based company with so-called demanufacturing centers in six locations nationwide, including one in Tigard.

Earth Protection recently signed a contract with the county to truck unwanted electronics to its Tigard facility, where workers break it down into components before shipping it to five other companies around the country for further processing.

The company has pledged to do business only with facilities whose own recycling operations also meet international standards for management of hazardous waste, Earth Protection spokesman Greg Sampson said.

The United Nations-supported "Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal" went into effect in 1992 and has been recognized by 160 nations.

The United States signed the treaty but has not ratified it.

The other countries worldwide who don't support the treaty include Afghanistan, Angola, Central African Republic, Congo, Eritrea, Fiji, Gabon, Grenada, Guinea Bissau, Iraq, North Korea, Liberia, Myanmar, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Togo, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.

A subsequent amendment to the Basel Convention banned the export of all forms of hazardous waste from the 29 wealthiest and most industrialized countries to developing nations.

Because of Earth Protection's commitment to those principles - and by meeting rigorous e-waste disposal standards developed and monitored by the Basel Action Network - Earth Protection soon will be added to the network's list of recyclers that operate according to a stringent "Recycler's Pledge" to keep hazardous materials from polluting the environment here and abroad, said Sarah Westervelt, toxics research analyst with the Basel Action Network, which qualifies the recyclers.

"Our mission is to prevent hazardous waste from being sent to developing nations," Westervelt said. "There is a huge amount of (disposal) activity in the United States. The volumes are astounding, but people just don't see them."

Organizations such as Basel Action Network, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and the Computer TakeBack Campaign want U.S. computer manufacturers to follow Europe's lead, where producers of the equipment must by law take it back for recycling or safe disposal when it becomes obsolete. So far, U.S. computer makers have resisted that.

In fact, Westervelt said, among the world's 30 most developed countries, only the United States has failed to sign the Basel Convention, which obligates signatory nations to monitor and control the hazardous waste they produce.

As a fallback, the environmental groups want to see businesses that accept the discards - such as Earth Protection - pledge to handle them in a way that doesn't damage the environment or their workers.

"It's just the environmentally correct way to do things," Earth Protection's Sampson said. "E-waste today is like the old refrigerators of 30 years ago and the fluorescent tubes of 10 years ago - when you find out that it's not correct to just throw the stuff out (in the dump), you're obligated to do something about it."

In Oregon, Marion County also has begun an e-waste recycling and recovery project, and the results of Marion's and Lane's programs will be watched carefully by other public agencies, Sampson said.

"They need to be commended on their work and research into this problem," he said. "I can't sing their praises enough - they're doing the right thing."

ELECTRONICS RECYCLERS' PLEDGE OF STEWARDSHIP

Nearly 30 recycling companies in the United States and Canada have pledged to carefully handle electronic waste. The pledge includes the following provisions:

Keep hazardous e-waste out of landfills and incinerators.

Do not participate in the export of hazardous e-wastes from developed to developing countries.

Do not allow e-waste to be sent to prisons for recycling.

Maintain a comprehensive "environmental management system."

Work only with other recycling facilities and recovery operations, such as smelters, that meet all applicable environmental and health regulations and provide the most efficient and least polluting recovery services available globally.

Provide tracking information about e-waste through the recycling and recovery chain.

Maintain bonds or insurance to cover the cost of accidents, or closure of the facility.

Support programs or legislation that encourage producers of electronic equipment to take final responsibility for their recycling or recovery when the products reach the end of their useful life.

WHERE LANE COUNTY'S E-WASTE GOES

The county has contracted with Earth Protection Services Inc. in Tigard to dismantle discarded electronic equipment for recovery or recycling. Here's where Earth Protection sends it:

Drives, cables, wire, printers and power supplies: Sent to Metro Metals in Vancouver, Wash., or Electronic Partners Corporation in Los Angeles, to be shredded and separated into ferrous and nonferrous metal and plastic waste. The plastic is turned into pellets for use as a cover for landfills

Computer circuit boards: Shredded at Hallmark Refining Co. in Mount Vernon, Wash., then sent to refining facilities - Noranda in Canada or Umicore in Belgium - for recapture of metals and burning of plastics

Cathode ray tubes: Shipped to Doe Run Lead Smelter in Missouri for lead removal from glass picture tubes for reuse in lead-acid batteries

Batteries: Separated by type and sent to INMETCO in Pennsylvania for processing

Computer and TV monitor cases: Baled and shipped to Salt Lake City for recycling

- Lane County Waste

Management Division

RECYCLING ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT IN LANE COUNTY

Individuals: Drop off by appointment Fridays or Saturdays this month; beginning in August, appointments available on Fridays and the fourth Saturday of the month

Businesses: By appointment, the third Wednesday of each month

Fees: Television sets, $5 to $20, depending on size; computers, $5; laptop computers, $5; monitors, $8; copy machines, $35. No charge for telephones, fax machines, computer peripherals, stereos, DVD players, VCRs or video game components

Who to call: Waste Management Division

at 682-3111

CAPTION(S):

Tim Foelker wraps plastic around a stack of computer monitors at Lane County's Glenwood Central Receiving Station.