Furniture company pays $24,000 for 'free' ewaste recycling

A good example where if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

A furniture company allowed the local Humane Society to use an empty warehouse to store discarded electronic equipment gathered in fundraisers. But the recycling company, EarthEcycle, never took care of the waste. So the company will pay about $24,000 for another recycler to remove the junk.

EarthEcycle promised to pay $150,000 to the humane society for the right to recycle the waste. It never did.

It appears that the recycling firm's plan was to dump the technotrash overseas for a profit. Instead, the Environmental Protection Agency cited EarthEcycle in June 2009 for improperly shipping e-waste from Pittsburgh to Hong Kong.

Improper handling of hazardous materials — such as lead in TV tubes and mercury in computer equipment — can cause birth defects and brain damage in children. But some companies ship used equipment to poorer parts of Asia to extract these metals for money.

"There's no environmentally acceptable process that allows me or anybody else to pay for electronic equipment and get it recycled for a profit," said a representative of the recycling firm that finally took the ewaste.

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