"This is the place where thousands of tons of the world's electronics go to die," The Atlantic in December wrote about Agbogbloshie, a district in the middle of Accra, Ghana. One U.S. e-scrap expert, however, says he saw no evidence of that during a recent trip to the West African country.
"It's basically a hoax," said Robin Ingenthron, founder of the Middlebury, Vermont-based World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association (WR3A), which advocates for the fair international trade of used electronics.
A United Nations-backed study on global e-scrap generation and recovery suggests the U.S. recycling rate for end-of-life electronics and appliances sits at about 15 percent.
Arrow Electronics has announced the opening of its first IT asset disposition facility in Singapore.
In announcing the move, the publicly traded company said the Singapore outpost "aligns with our commitment to pursuing emerging and high-growth markets."
"Our capabilities and reach are growing with the global demand for IT asset disposition and reverse logistics services, and we believe we have the most robust set of capabilities and the global reach to serve our customers wherever they need us," Mark Majeske, president of Arrow's global reverse logistics business, said in a sta
Minnesota-based Materials Processing LLC has been fined $125,000 for storing 2,500 tons of CRT glass in more than 100 semi-trailers around the Twin Cities.
Nulife Glass has officially opened its second U.S. facility and says it will take a year for the Virginia operation to start smelting leaded glass.
Replete with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a video message delivered by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Nulife's Bristol, Virginia location marked its first day of business on April 9. It is the U.K.-based company's second U.S. outpost, joining Nulife's Dunkirk, New York facility.
A "right-to-repair" bill in the New York legislature would require electronics manufacturers to provide repair and recycling information, parts and tools to independent e-scrap recycling entities.
The bill, S3998 in the state's Senate and A6068 in the Assembly, would require manufacturers to provide the same information, parts and tools to independent shops and individual consumers that they provide to authorized repair centers.
A similar bill has been introduced in
Minnesota is the latest state to consider updating its e-scrap recycling law.
On March 4, a bill was introduced to state lawmakers, proposing to amend the structure used to determine e-scrap collection requirements for equipment manufacturers.
Environmental officials in Pennsylvania say manufacturers aren't paying enough to ensure collected electronics are getting recycled.
"The issue here is that the reimbursements being provided by manufacturers are not aligning with the actual costs to recycle the items," Amanda Whitman, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), told E-Scrap News.
Millions of pounds of CRT devices abandoned by Utah's Stone Castle Recycling continue to plague local communities.
According to a pair of articles appearing April 5 in the Salt Lake Tribune, six former locations of Stone Castle remain piled high with CRT devices.
Minnesota-based Materials Processing LLC has been fined $125,000 for storing 2,500 tons of CRT glass in more than 100 semi-trailers around the Twin Cities.