This afternoon we received comments back from Basel Action Network on the way the SB20 Reform process should go, from their legal viewpoint.
Where these were points of argument at the R2 "e-waste" dialogue, WR3A strongly agrees with BAN that these are a better method of reuse than California SB20 collectors and processors use currently. Our concern all along is that E-Stewards were opting for zero reuse and zero export, creating a "war on drugs" trafficking opportunity for "toxics along for the ride". California can do an elaborate amount of testing if reuse and testing is put on an equal footing with recycling. It's a win-win proposition.California wins. The SB20 pays for the destruction of every monitor anyway. Any that are sold represent dollars and jobs brought back into the state. Every sale takes away an opportunity for someone else to ship a shoddy containerload.
The importing factories win. They get newer, better products with lower shipping costs, and get a better choice than laying off skilled workers where any job, let alone a sustainable tech job, is in demand.
The developing world wins. With a gently used CRT, they get a display device which lasts 5 times longer than an LCD, is less fragile and less vulnerable to theft. And, in the proper recycling of incidental breakage and take-back of their own electronics scrap, they get capacity to recycle their own "e-waste".
The "E-waste" advocacy organizations win. BAN and NRDC and ETBC and SVTC get to demonstrate their own reuse standards, creating new markets for their "e-Stewards".
If California processors actually test significant numbers of CRTs to BAN's specs, and ship them to the contract manufacturing plants WR3A works with, the result will be better CRTs provided less expensively.
Who loses?
Sham Recyclers who grew accustomed to shipping lousy CRTs during the shortage created by SB20. They had a great decade, making millions off of a shortage California helped to create.
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