Chicago Electronics Recycler Faked Tear-Downs, Sent Hazardous Waste To Overseas Landfills (arstechnica.com)

Federals agents have accused Brian Brundage, the former owner of Chicago-based electronics recycling company Intercon Solutions and current owner of EnviroGreen Processing, of fraud for failing to properly break down and recycle electronic devices according to federal guidelines. Brundage allegedly shipped Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) from old computer and TV monitors, which contained "hazardous amounts of lead," and batteries to overseas landfills for disposal. The leftover electronics that weren't shipped overseas were destroyed inappropriately at his businesses or stored in warehouses, which is forbidden by federal guidelines. Ars Technica reports: According to the indictment (PDF), Brundage also improperly resold many of the electronics he acquired. Between 2009 and 2015, Brundage received shipments of calculators from an unnamed technology company in Texas with instructions to disassemble the calculators and recycle them accordingly. But Brundage apparently resold the calculators to another company based in Tampa, Florida, which purchased and sold used electronics. In exchange for the shipments of calculators, Brundage allegedly had the company in Tampa directly pay some of Brundage's personal expenses. Those expense include between $31,000 and $39,000 per year for a nanny and $26,000 to $42,000 per year for a housekeeper, as well as tens of thousands of dollars for jewelry expenses and payments to an Indiana-based casino. Among the more colorful accusations in the US government's indictment of Brundage: the businessman allegedly went to lengths to fool third-party auditors into giving his companies the certifications necessary to keep doing business as an e-recycler. Brundage allegedly invited unknowing customers on sham tours of Intercon's facility. Once there, he "directed Intercon's warehouse staff to set up a staged disassembly line to make it falsely appear as though Intercon regularly processed e-waste in a manner that was consistent with its public representations." The Chicago Tribune published a feature on Intercon in 2007. In it, Brundage is quoted saying, "We put old products on a disassembly line. We break each item down to raw materials and send them off to be smelted and reused." He added, "nothing that leaves here goes to a landfill."

Comments

Calculators?

[Frosty Piss]

Calculators from Texas, eh? Wonder if they were functional and hit the "grey market"...

Re:Calculators?

[ArylAkamov]

This might explain the abundance of cheap (Compared to new) graphic calculators that were on Ebay when this company was around.

I bought one, along with some friends, only to find out the pictures were misleading and the calculator was branded "PROTOTYPE ONLY - NOT FOR RESALE". It also ended up being incompatible with their official software.

Re: Calculators?

[hawguy]

wait, calculators? are we sure his story isn't from the 1980s?

There's still a thriving calculator market for students since some exams have a list of permitted calculators (that are permitted because they have limited (or no) programmability).

I still use my HP-15C when I have to do some basic math, it's faster and easier than using my computer or cell phone (even though I have an HP calculator emulator on the phone, having real keys makes a huge difference in accuracy)

Re: Calculators?

[Frosty Piss]

wait, calculators? are we sure his story isn't from the 1980s?

Not an engineer, eh?

Re: Calculators?

[Pascoea]

There's still a thriving calculator market for students since some exams have a list of permitted calculators

And a TI-83 still goes for about $100 new...

Re:Calculators?

[No Longer an AC]

Not only were they functional, they were instrumental to an unnamed company in Texas at one time.

I don't have a fancy HP or even a programmable one, but I have kept a TI-60 in my desk for at least 25 years. I guess I don't actually use it much anymore. I just checked. The battery is dead.

Re: Calculators?

[zamboni1138]

You'll have to pry my 1993 HP 48G from my cold, dead hands.

Re: Calculators?

[petermgreen]

I'm guessing more "not a student or parent"

Between smartphones and PCs most people even in engineering have little need for standalone calculators nowadays. The exception is students at school/college/university. Most exams allow some form of calculator (how advanced varies) while forbidding smartphones, pdas, tablets, laptops etc. If you want to do well in those exams then unless you are a mental arithmetic wizard you need to buy and get familiar with a calculator that is accepted by the exam rules.

Re: Calculators?

[AutodidactLabrat]

...I think mathcad is free now,... there is octave on linux, though i haven't used it much, and of course there is actual code for any complex problem.

Don't forget Scilab

Fine

[Princeofcups]

Pay a small fine and get a CEO job somewhere else. The US has no shame any more. By the standards of the incoming government, this man is a shining example of capitalism at its finest.

Re:Fine

[Frosty Piss]

Pay a small fine and get a CEO job somewhere else.

After a federal grand jury indictment? Probably not...

Re:Fine

[DonaId Trump]

After a federal grand jury indictment? Probably not...

The federal grand jury was RIGGED! Brian Brundage bumped into me the other day and you know what he said? PARDON ME...

The EPA will need a Deputy Director, folks, and who's more tremendous than the president of EnviroGreen? Here's a JOB CREATOR, let me tell you. He built a HUGE business exporting American products and what does he get? The liberals want to put him in prison! And believe me, folks, "hazardous amounts of lead" is a hoax started by guys like Ralph Nader. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are doing great, they voted for me by the way, almost 50 years of pure Led and they're almost as healthy as I am.

Re:Fine

[execthis]

I'm actually surprised by the article. Because where I live - a major city that goes to great lengths to bill itself as being environmental - what you're supposed to do with e-waste is just throw it in the garbage. I'm not kidding. Also, much of what people think is getting recycled is also going to landfill. In fact one of the former mayors of the city worked as an attorney to defend the city against fines because it constantly exceeds its allocation of landfill space.

In my apartment building it sickens me every time I take out my compost to the compost bin and see plastic and general garbage dumped in there. The recycling company - controlled by a mafia-run monopoly that the city gave them for all waste removal - is supposed to notify the landlord when the compost is contaminated with regular waste, but of course that never happens. That didn't stop the city from making a big deal some years ago trying to force people to use its compost in their gardens, toxic though it is.

Basically waste removal is mostly a big mafia-based industry and much of what is claimed to be recycled is just dumped into landfill. Its a scam, just like so many other scams such as the promise of upgraded fiber to the home which never happened.

Re:Fine

[ClickOnThis]

After a federal grand jury indictment? Probably not...

The federal grand jury was RIGGED! Brian Brundage bumped into me the other day and you know what he said? PARDON ME...

The EPA will need a Deputy Director, folks, and who's more tremendous than the president of EnviroGreen? Here's a JOB CREATOR, let me tell you. He built a HUGE business exporting American products and what does he get? The liberals want to put him in prison! And believe me, folks, "hazardous amounts of lead" is a hoax started by guys like Ralph Nader. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are doing great, they voted for me by the way, almost 50 years of pure Led and they're almost as healthy as I am.

Well Donald, I'd rather you build a wall made of recycled electronics around this guy, and make him pay for it.

Re:Fine

[LunaticTippy]

Sad. The places I've lived (western US) have all had good e-waste and recycling programs. Schoolkids can tour the facilities and watch waste get sorted, palletized, and shipped off for raw materials. It isn't super hard to do it properly, but it is more expensive than phoning it in.

Re:Fine

[Swave An deBwoner]

What city is this? In NYC household trash and many recyclables picked up by the city's own Department of Sanitation (DSNY). Commercial trash however is not handled by DSNY, and the businesses are required to contract with commercial carters; these folks are as you describe - everything goes into the hopper same as the days before the word "recycling" was ever used. Everything except what falls onto the street, that is - that stuff is left for DSNY to clean up the next time they pass through.

Re:Fine

[silentcoder]

Baskin-Robbins always finds out.

Re:Fine

[Quakeulf]

Please get this right: If you get away with it, it is not a fine, but a bribe.

Re:Fine

[Joe_Dragon]

UBER will hire people like that.

Re:Fine

[DarkOx]

What people don't realize is even the legitimate players are really part of a shell game. I was listing to a radio interview with a local company around here and he was explaining all these municipalities and business like to say x% of our waste goes to a recycler, the problem is that they are increasingly sending contaminated waste to hit those numbers. We have to sort out that stuff and send it back to the very same landfill it would have otherwise gone to.

They charge more or in some cases pay less for recyclable materials where a greater part of the haul will be contaminated. Think cardboard == recyclable, pizza box will grease and cheese on it != recyclable. Obviously it would be possible to remove the contaminates recycle the box, but in practice its not economically possible to do so and from an environmental impact perspective it might not make sense either, given the increased energy requirements of the process and chemistry that might be required.

The short version is a huge part of the recycling industry is really about 'feel good environmentalism' where certain groups of people are essentially paying to have the real consequences of their life style hidden from them and or to receive some kind of absolution from their secular gods.

Re:Fine

[skids]

This is why my basement is still full of e-waste.

I simply don't have time to disguise myself as an employee, sneak into a recycling business, and verify that they are actually breaking stuff down, then personally follow trucks that leave the facility to see that they go to smelting facilities.

Which apparently, is the only way to be sure.

Re:Fine

[blackanvil]

Or so you were led to think. As the article points out, when officials visited this recycling center, they put up a Potemkin Village of a recycling setup so it all looked right. And assholes like this are too cowardly to come up with something like this: he got the idea from somewhere, and odds are good its actually standard industry practice, just kept quiet to ensure maximum profits at the public tit.

Re:Fine

[execthis]

Much of recycling seems to be a failure in the United States. Strange since it's not in other countries. It's an indication not of logistical but of political failure, as per usual.

Re:Fine

[LunaticTippy]

You seem really pessimistic. I prefer to try to find solutions and find ways to make things better instead of assuming everything sucks and giving up. I'm realistic by nature (kinder term for pessimist!) and have to make a conscious effort.

Anyway, the post I was responding to was from someone where the actual policy was to throw e-waste in the trash. That's bad policy. I'm happy the places I have lived have better policies. We can work on getting the particulars right once good policies are in place.

Re:Calculators

[Gordo_1]

Hmmm... Texas & calculators... I guess this one will just go down as one of those eternally unsolvable mysteries. Right along with that Minnesota mining company that makes adhesives.

similar to a local recycler

[turkeydance]

which had the county contract and recycled almost nothing but shipped it all away.

And those who used his services?

[eepok]

I haven't read this article yet, but I plan to and then dig some more. As someone working in sustainability (waste, water, GHG emissions, etc.) for a very, very large organization, I can't help but wonder if the orgs that were customers of Brundage will have any certifications they gained by using his recycling business revoked and if they will be fined for not meeting attainment goals retroactively.

Re:And those who used his services?

[dfm3]

...I can't help but wonder if the orgs that were customers of Brundage will have any certifications they gained by using his recycling business revoked and if they will be fined for not meeting attainment goals retroactively.

I would certainly hope not. I am responsible for small scale hazardous waste collection at my workplace - mostly metals like lead and cadmium as well as toxic organic compounds - and I can say that the process of disposal is heavily documented with a clear paper trail. When the waste is picked up and removed from the premises by the waste contractor, I have to certify that each container holds what the label says it does, then once the waste has been treated I get mailed a manifest certifying that it has been safely transported to the processing facility and properly disposed of. So long as I've correctly identified the waste (say, I haven't tried to pass off a mercury compound as some other metal) once I receive the paperwork stating that the contractor has done their part, I'm legally off the hook as to what happens to the waste, since without actually observing the processes at their facility (and being able to understand what I'm seeing) I have no choice but to take it on good faith that the waste was treated legally.

Re:And those who used his services?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the pharmaceutical area, you are obligated to audit all your contractors' and suppliers' processes - by inspection of their work, including their records and processes, including their sub-contractors if critical to your process stream (supply and discharge). "I have no choice but to take it on good faith" doesn't stand up. Now, if the firm you are contracting to is fully licensed in a properly regulated environment, you can assume that they have some measure of validity. But "they had 'green' written on the side of the truck" doesn't count. You need to prove you've done your homework. Do you get copies annually of their recertification ? copies of their insurance certificates ? etc.

Re:And those who used his services?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, but TFA says that the guy had fake disassembly lines set up. So even those who did what you suggest, personally reviewing their processes, got misled. You can only go so far, and it's possible to completely fake everything. Fake books, fake shipments, the whole thing.
I reviewed a recycling plant as part of deciding to use them, and years later it turned out they had tons of CRT's stored on site, same kind of deal, not really recycling just piling up until they went out of business. And these guys were touted as 'industry leaders'.
The only way to know for sure would be to be hired by them for three months or so, and that's a high cost to do an 'audit'.

Re:Calculators

[Frosty Piss]

Actually, the article specifically mentions Texas Instruments.

Re:Calculators

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. No one on Slashdot knows what TFA says.

Yawn

[rsilvergun]

Indictment != conviction. Talk to me when this guy does hard time for poisoning the water supply of the kids in whichever hell hole got the electronics dumped there.

Anyone remember when that mining CEO got some actual jail time for ignoring safety regs and falsifying safety reports? The accidents weren't what made the news, the fact that we actually punished somebody for them did.

Now how US Law works

[rsilvergun]

if he had some European customers maybe (and he might have, since it'd be a great way to "launder" the goods, so to speak). But in the US if you hire a business to do a job and they kill a bunch of people in the process you're almost always blameless. You'd have to prove that a) they knew about it and b) they were actively seeking someone to break the law. Our Juries are mostly old white dudes (it's true, even if it makes folks uncomfortable to think about), especially on trials that can last a while like this. They tend to side with people and not the state prosecutors when it's other old white dudes.

Re:Now how US Law works

[Triklyn]

i've googled, please provide link. from what i read,

he could not return "guilty" of murder and was the lone holdout. after more deliberation the "guilty" camp actually lost people too. and there were numerous questions about the difference between a voluntary manslaughter conviction and a murder conviction.

voir dire is the prosecution and defense's responsibility too.

It's not about racism

[rsilvergun]

it's just that like folks tend to side with like folks. It's how people are, and there's plenty of studies to prove it. The defense just has to get enough of the right kind of people on the jury to keep from a conviction. And it's a lot easier when the defendant is a well to do white man. Pretending otherwise is silly.

contained "hazardous amounts of lead"

[Ozoner]

I thought that the Lead in a CRT was in the Lead Glass.

In which case it is as about as inert as is possible.

About the same as the vitrification of radioactive waste by sintering in glass.

Re: contained "hazardous amounts of lead"

[Swave An deBwoner]

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/electronics/pages/lead.htm

Figure 2 shows where the lead is in the various parts of a typical color CRT used in a TV or computer monitor. The lead in the funnel and face plate glass is physically and chemically bound up in the glass matrix and does not leach very readily. The lead in the frit which joins or welds the face plate glass to the funnel glass is in the form of a lead oxide paste. The lead in the frit does leach quite readily when subjected to the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test used to determine whether a discarded material is a hazardous waste or not. Research done at the University of Florida in 1999 and sponsored by the DEP showed that CRTs usually test to be a hazardous waste when subjected to the TCLP test.

There is of course lead also in the soldered connections, as with most e-waste.

Re: contained "hazardous amounts of lead"

[jabuzz]

It's makes even less sense than that as lead recovery from CRT glass is now a established process.

http://www.nulifeglass.com/faq...

Basically CRT glass in, pure glass and lead out, and lead is a reasonably valuable material for new batteries. Seems UPS are still all lead acid, which I guess is down to simple chemistry and given UPS's are stationary weight is not a problem. Then there is the battery in every IC vehicle out there.

Further more the idea of sending lead batteries to land fill is utterly ludicrous. Ring up any metal recycler and they will happily *PAY YOU* to take away your pile of old UPS batteries for crying out loud.

Re: contained "hazardous amounts of lead"

[cdrudge]

There may be lead also in the soldered connections, as with most e-waste.

FTFY. With lead free solders,RoHS regulations, and the general movement to minimize hazardous materials, you can't say automatically that there's lead in the solder joints with modern electronics.

Re: contained "hazardous amounts of lead"

[retroworks]

This. And particularly in Illinois, the state where Intercon worked, where licensed landfilling of leaded CRT glass is permitted for this reason. Illinois permitted the Peoria Illinois landfill to be in the CRT disposal business. See Illinois House Bill 6321 (HB 6321) and its companion Senate Bill 2770 (SB 2770) to go further and actually state that it is a "form of recycling" (a bridge too far for me).

As another commenter posted, if your read the charges against Brundage, this is #1 and #2 an IRS tax cheating case and #3 a fraud case (publicly claiming Intercon never, ever landfilled CRT glass). The TI calculators were probably better managed in China, but if you accept payment for DOS - destroy on site - you nevertheless have committed fraud. There is no big pile of export dumping that we can see here. Arguably the original sin was committed by the NGO who accused export markets of bad behavior based on their race (never saw a single reference to anything bad happening), which forced clients to demand "zero export" services, which led to fraudulent behavior when the export market is superior, or when landfilling vitrified CRT glass is less harmful than recycling it into dust no one wants.

There is more lead in leaded glass diningware than in CRT glass. What elevates this story is the hyperbole over e-waste, which mainly rests on hyperbole.

http://www.scrapmonster.com/ne...

Re: contained "hazardous amounts of lead"

[Swave An deBwoner]

There may be lead also in the soldered connections, as with most e-waste.

FTFY. With lead free solders,RoHS regulations, and the general movement to minimize hazardous materials, you can't say automatically that there's lead in the solder joints with modern electronics.

Given that we are discussing CRTs here, I was referring to "most e-waste of a similar era", but sure, with current use of 99+% tin solder we are looking at a different envrionmental contaminant instead of at lead.

the trump administration will solve the issue

[DavidMZ]

The Trump administration will remove all those regulations that are BAD for business. Recycling regulations are BAD for the American economy. We can't compete with CHINA with this situation. Luckily, Trump has assembled the right team to bring business ethics into the EPA, and get rid of the tree-hugger communist snowflake morals. America will be great again (as long as you don't happen to leave close to a toxic landfill, but none of Trump's billionaire friends do).

Re:the trump administration will solve the issue

[Swave An deBwoner]

Get over it already. Hillary lost. Putin won.

Re:the trump administration will solve the issue

[Argos]

Post to undo wrong moderation.

Always pay the IRS, small e-waste issues

[bongey]

The entire indictment has less than 3k in e-waste fraud issues, the majority of the > 600k income was unreported and trying to expense a 35k trip to the casino.

Re:Always pay the IRS, small e-waste issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly / Mod up. After the tax issues, the misleading of customers (claims by Intercon to never export, "e-Steward" certification) is the next most serious charge. When there is an actual case of significant dumping (e.g. Trafigura) there is always a habeus e-corpus, a pile of something that was dumped. Brundage actually exported little according to the claims made against him in 2011 - one sea container in a two week period. But the taxes and false claims are what may get him.

What's the big deal?

[hambone142]

The U.S. has been outsourcing pollution to China, India and other countries for decades.

Tell me that Apple, H.P., Dell and the rest could get away with the pollution their products cause in China (for example) in the U.S.

The CEOs are rated on profit and when they can maximize profit in polluting countries, those cretins get their rewards.

Nothing new here.

Re:Carbon credits?

[MightyMartian]

People.have always and will.alwsys die, so I guess it's okay if someone walks up and smashes a brick over your head, right?

Re:Carbon credits?

[silentcoder]

We're almost as crazy for thinking we can reduce the murder rate with good law enforcement as we were for thinking humans committed most of the murders.

Federals agents

[wonkey_monkey]

Federals agents

Jesus Christs, Slashdots, yous can'ts evens gets the firsts words rights. Yous sounds likes this guys:

https://theinfosphere.org/imag...

Re:Federals agents

[Maritz]

Yous sounds likes thises guys:

https://theinfosphere.org/imag...

FTFY

(sorry if it was just a typo)

Re:Carbon credits?

[Maritz]

guess we caused every ice age to end by driving our gas powered vehicles lol

Funnily enough, resorting to such a pathetic strawman is tacit admission that you have absolutely nothing.

Keep burying your head in the sand, twat.

Re:Incorrect headline

[Maritz]

Next time I see "white liberals" written on a wall in shit, I'll know you've been in the area.

Re:Federals Foils

[Maritz]

MOAR PLURALSES

And how do yo know he's a liberal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or even a greenie? Or is this just you insisting that the ONLY bad people are those who don't agree with you or have a different political outlook?

And people wonder why Trump won. Retards like the above did it. Not liberals, hell, not even kicking out Bernie. It was the morons like the above who insist that any errors or crimes MUST be for the other side to do, because their side is just amazing.

Profit?

[bussdriver]

Ok, sure city granted monopolies end up costing more than just having the city or county government do the job. But try to explain that to a public that has been raised on propaganda saying that is impossible. Facts do not work. I've seen it happen.

Recycling is not profitable. 1st you have to FORCE people because if given the choice they will not bother. Just like we have to FORCE people to buy trash service so the cheap bastards don't dump trash in our public parks etc. AFTER you have a forced customer base, then you can FORCE a profit in addition to whatever scheme to squeeze out more profits unethically and/or illegally (aka efficiency.)

Our paper recycling is losing us money. Because we pay more so we don't have to sort our recycling, the paper is now too dirty for the Chinese to buy it. Yes, our paper was shipped all the way to China to be recycled! How can that be profitable even when they used to accept it? Only some recycling pays and it fluctuates the rest is done at a loss. The private biz hides the up/down and where to details with no accountability. The gov operation looked bad because we could see the process. Recycling is a dirty business... unless we change our products to be aware of their full lifecycle it will remain this way.

Without hard fiscalization this kind of thing...

[fbobraga]

... will not reduces ("but, but, the free-market will solve everything!": in your dreams!)

Recycling Value

[unixcorn]

In some places, old landfills are being reprocessed. What that means is whatever is buried there now has enough value to make it worthwhile to dig up and recycle. If engineered correctly, landfills are safe places to "store" our waste. In my view, a landfill is an investment in the future. From leachate to precious metals, all have a value. That value may not currently be enough to make reprocessing attractive but in the future it certainly will be.

Old News

[gordguide]

Organized Crime has long infiltrated the Waste Management industry. This is hardly news; when it comes to recycling (where companies are paid to dispose of whatever) it seems obvious that you can collect the cash and dispose of nothing = profit, especially since the fees are set up in the first place to guarantee profits if you actually do dispose of the waste properly.

The "Mob" has been caught disposing of Dioxins by putting a quart here, a quart there, in tankers of gasoline, which is then distributed to stations across a region (NorthEast US, Montreal, etc) so that your wife and daughter can pump them into their subcompacts and burn it away, obviously being exposed to a Cancer risk while doing so. What makes anyone think a little lead from a CRT is going to give them pause?