The globally responsible path to recycle your electronics.
e-Stewards is a project of BAN (Basel Action Network), a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Seattle, Washington. This project is against the growing e-waste crisis. Due to the lack of national and international legislation and regulations in many regions, this situation is unfortunately left to citizens, corporations, universities, all to “figure out” how to prevent hazardous materials from electronics from continuing to cause long-term damage to human health and the environment, especially in countries with developing economies. BAN was founded in 1997 and named after the Basel Convention, which restricts trade in hazardous waste and was intended to stop the disposal of hazardous materials in developing nations. Today BAN is not only a world leader in informing and promoting toxic waste trade and international hazardous waste treaties, but has also developed market-based solutions that rely on global standards for responsible recycling and independent certification to those standards.
Despite BAN’s success on the e-waste problem, the growing consumption and disposal of technology means more e-waste than ever, which is choking poor communities with toxins around the world. In 2003 BAN and other NGO’s, trying to help consumers and businesses make the right choices, launched the “E-Management Pledge Program”, with which more than 40 e-waste recyclers, who were trained by BAN to use only responsible and safe means to process e-waste, this program was only applicable in the USA, and with it significant changes were made in establishing and ensuring best e-recycling practices for hazardous materials, such as ; no landfill disposal, no incineration, no prison labor and above all no export to poor communities.
In 2006 BAN dropped this pledge program to become a certification program with independent audits in order to fully participate in the process of creating a voluntary recycling standard with the U.S. EPA’s Responsible Recycling (R2) program. After two years of active participation in this process, the environmental community gave up due to conflicts in issuing this standard as it required a vote to include import laws as well as permitting hazardous waste disposal facilities, so recycling leaders petitioned BAN and the asset recovery industries to create a truly rigorous certification program that would ensure full compliance on electronic recycling practices.
The “e-Stewards certification” for electronic recyclers began in the late 2000s, by early 2010 the first e-Stewards certifications were held and the first three approved certifying bodies were announced.
At the same time, the first U.S. businesses, including some Fortune 500 companies, committed to an e-Stewards approach, using only certified recyclers for the disposal of their assets and services, thus forming the group of “e-Stewards companies”.
The e-Stewards certification program for electronics recyclers is designed to provide market incentives that leverage the entire hazardous materials handling chain. In addition, it is on track to develop programs to train or certify companies that collect or transport electronics in order to increase the volume of electronics handled globally in a responsible manner. Together, these programs will create a network of responsible collection and processing entities, insurers and consumers alike, so that their older technologies do not contaminate vulnerable populations, recycling workers or global ecosystems.
