With an appreciation of the dangers inherent in unmonitored recycling, HP is committing to greater transparency in the recycling supply chain and calls on other companies to do the same.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. That’s the mantra of sustainability, and some of us commit to it by bringing in our waste for recycling. Unfortunately, what gets dropped off in those receptacles doesn’t always end up being dismantled and reassembled the way we imagined.
Some companies involved are not strictly playing by the rules of recycling in an environmentally responsible way. That’s the finding of the environmental health and justice organization, Basel Action Network (BAN).
As part of its e-Trash Transparency Project, in September BAN published a report called “Scam Recycling: e-Dumping on Asia by US Recyclers.” The organization placed GPS trackers in 205 monitors and printers that contained components identified as “hazardous waste under international law.”
BAN partnered with MIT's Senseable City Labs to produce an online map to show the pathways of the 205 trackers. You can see their routes and how far they traveled here.
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