First, watch this video from 60 Minutes on the lethal impact of toxic electronic dumping:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/18/tech/main3518429.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Today's Post-Gazette: EPA Accused Electronics Recycler of Violations
The company does seem to have ran afoul of the EPA, in spite of the protests of their ardent local defenders, er defender. Who works for them. Go figure.
I'm getting heat from animal advocates telling me that I should not be critical of the organizations that were scammed by this man. I disagree. Scammed, duped, misled, etc does not absolve them from some culpability, especially when the news headlines are filled with compaints about their missing money.
Is the missing money really the issue? I mean do you think the mother of the children playing near the toxic waste dump is wishing to take her kids to Disney Land or a home with a non-glow-in-the-dark playground? I get that these organizations need the money and put the eggs in the wrong basket. That's disappointing, I'm sure. But it is also foolish greed.
It seems improbable that all of these educated animal welfare volunteers missed the huge media coverage on this issue. It doesn't take a 60 Minutes geek like me to have picked up on the fact that there's a reason ALL of the electronic recycling companies charge people to dispose of these items.
But fine, let's leave it that they were duped and lost money they could have been raising with that energy and time. Fine. The question becomes how are they going to undo this damage? I don't mean the money or the fact that they look rather foolish, but what are they going to do about the collateral damage from their decisions to participate --- the humans and the animals living near the toxic dumps? Will any of these groups step forward with whatever proceeds they use and ensure that items sitting in the containers in Monroeville or wherever don't sit there forever? I guess the best case scenario is that they are seized by the feds or the state and disposed of -- on our public dime -- appropriately.
To be fair, it seems like none of the items collected in Western PA made it to the dumps. That's a huge relief. But they still exist.
Does anyone feel anything but anger about the money over this? I love the animal welfare groups and what they do, but it appalls me that people seem to think the lives of our domestic pets are more important than the wildlife and the human beings in these toxic dumps. I guess we don't see enough barefoot children trekking through the local dumps for it to seem real, huh?
