Redemtech Makes History with First-ever Capitol Hill E-waste Recycling Event

The U.S. Capitol is all about history, from the groundbreaking ceremony for the original Capitol building in 1793 where George Washington laid the cornerstone to what would become the meeting place for the U.S. Congress to the construction of the now-familiar Rotunda and first dome of the Capitol during Abraham Lincoln’s administration.

History was made again this week on Capitol Hill when the first-ever Capitol Hill Electronics Collection Day was held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in an effort to provide federal government staffers with an opportunity to properly dispose of their electronic waste.

Redemtech managed the collection event, working directly with U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson of California, the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Green the Capitol, the Senate Rules Committee and the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) and others. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio also was on hand to help launch the inaugural event, which filled a truck with the end-of-life electronic equipment collected and which Redemtech will refurbish and donate to Horton’s Kids, a Washington, D.C. youth tutoring and mentoring organization.

The Capitol Hill e-recycling event helped to raise awareness of the e-waste crisis, according to Redemtech President Bob Houghton, who attended the event with Jill Vaske, vice president of sales, and other Redemtech associates. Houghton said Redemtech takes pride in refurbishing and recycling electronics in the U.S., but expressed the company’s dismay that 90 percent of e-waste sent to so-called U.S. “recyclers” gets shipped to developing nations where crude and unsafe methods are used to disassemble the electronics, according to a CIO news story.

In the article, Houghton said the U.S. "has outsourced a tremendous amount of our electronics lifecycle. These costs for proper recycling have been, in effect, externalized to the detriment of people in developing countries. We need to recognize there is a cost to proper recycling and make that part of the expense of using electronics.”

E-waste is finally becoming a political issue and one for which Redemtech has been carrying a banner for years. Last September, Houghton endorsed a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that targeted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for lax enforcement practices associated with e-waste disposal. Houghton spoke at a press conference alongside Thompson and U.S. Rep. Gene Green of Texas as the congressional representatives praised the government auditor’s report and criticized the EPA for allowing many scrap vendors and others in the U.S. to ship end-of-lifecycle electronic devices containing toxic substances overseas to developing nations where little regulation or enforcement exists to protect people and the environment.

According to The Hill, Thompson, Green and U.S. Reps. Mary Bono Mack of California and Louise Slaughter of New York have come together as Congress’s E-waste Working Group. Last week, new legislation was introduced with the intent to restrict certain exports of e-waste, which the proponents say would provide safeguards against the export of toxic e-waste to developing nations.

So this week’s collection event hopefully will help build on the platform that the U.S. must promote responsible IT asset management and environmental programs regarding how e-waste is managed. The e-waste crisis has many far-reaching political effects, ranging from the important export issue to how states regulate aspects such as landfilling, incineration and electronics demanufacturing by prison labor. As an original Basil Action Network e-Steward, Redemtech is opposed to these detriments to human health and environmental sustainability.

Addressing e-waste issues can contribute to solutions in other political arenas as well, as additional political leaders at the event expressed. “This remarkable event demonstrates how innovation in business can create green jobs in Ohio and address environmental threats that endanger public health,” Brown said.

Abraham Lincoln once addressed the impact of history in a speech when he said, “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.” The same can be said of the e-waste crisis, which cannot be relegated to distant shores or buried in landfills without consequences for all humanity.