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

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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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: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: 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...

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.