The Recycler
  • Katun web banner December 2022 NEW
  • Biuromax Masthead web banner March 2024
  • G&G Masthead August 2024
  • Ambiente 2025 Masthead

Seattle recyclers charged with conspiracy

November 16, 2018

Total Reclaim Inc. has been charged by federal prosecutors with lying to customers about the destination of its e-waste.

According to The Stranger, the company’s customers, which include the City of Seattle, have paid millions of dollars to Total Reclaim for it to recycle e-waste including printers, computers, and other electronic appliances.

Total Reclaim, owned by Craig Lorch and Jeffrey Zirkle, markets itself as “environmentally responsible,” prosecutors asserted, and claimed that it did not export potentially hazardous materials to countries without the regulations in place to safely dispose of it.

However, in 2016 the environmental watchdog Basel Action Network (BAN) placed GPS devices in waste being processed by the company; these were then tracked to unregulated facilities in Hong Kong.

Total Reclaim initially refuted the claims, but later publicly admitted to the fraud, and was fined $444,000 by the Washington state Department of Ecology in 2016. A further fine of $67,000 followed in 2017, after regulators discovered thousands of flat-screen televisions improperly stored on Harbor Island.

BAN’s Executive Director, Jim Puckett, said: “The impacts of these toxic e-waste exports are difficult to quantify in terms of occupational disease, but the workers we observed at the junkyard operations [in Hong Kong] were unprotected and unaware of the acute and chronic poisoning from constant mercury inhalation.”

“Further, we observed much of the toxic waste that was not recyclable including mercury tubes, simply dumped in rural waysides, contaminating farmland and groundwater,” Puckett added.

Lorch and Zirkle are scheduled to appear in US District Court later today.

Categories : Around the IndustryWorld Focus

Tags : Crime E-waste Legal Seattle Total Reclaim Inc. USA

  • Apex September 2024 Web ad
  • TN Group Oct 2024 Web ad
  • GM Technology October 2024
  • G&G Big & Bold Web banner January 2024
  • Cartridge Web Oct 2024 Web Banner
  • Static Control June 2022 Big & Bold Ad
  • Biuromax web banner July 2024
  • Ink Tank September 2024 Web ad
  • IR Italiana Web ad January 2021
  • PCL Oct 2024 Web banner
  • Denner Feb 2024 Web Ad
  • Mito Web banner June 2024
  • HYB Web banner Jan 2024
  • CET Web ad December 2023
  • Zhono Web ad March 2024
  • ITP Web ad January 2021
  • denner UK Web Banner Jul 2024
  • denner UK Web Banner Jul 2024
  • HYB Web banner Jan 2024
  • Denner Feb 2024 Web Ad
  • PCL Oct 2024 Web banner
  • Zhono Web ad March 2024
  • ITP Web ad January 2021
  • CET Web ad December 2023
  • Mito Web banner June 2024
  • Mito Web banner June 2024
  • denner UK Web Banner Jul 2024
  • CET Web ad December 2023
  • Denner Feb 2024 Web Ad
  • HYB Web banner Jan 2024
  • ITP Web ad January 2021
  • PCL Oct 2024 Web banner
  • Zhono Web ad March 2024

The Recycler, Wittas House, Two Rivers, Station Lane, Witney, OX28 4BH, United Kingdom | Tel: +44 (0) 1993 899800 | Fax : +44 (0) 1993 226899
©2006-2023 The Recycler - Terms & Conditions - Privacy Policy including cookie use

Web design Dorset | Websites by Mark