I’ve wanted to respond to your post for quite some time. I’ve finally gotten around to it with a couple of my own posts.
http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/07/monkeys-running-zoo.html

I have a degree in international relations and served the Peace Corps in Africa, both as a volunteer and as a volunteer trainer. As the head of the Massachusetts DEP recycling department, I oversaw the first waste ban in the country on CRTs.

I have no doubt about your sincerity, and your post does a good job of describing the perils of unintended consequences. However, the conclusions you reach, basically telling people that most of the recycling in the USA is bad, and most people should not participate in it, is so over the top that “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.

If you actually study the international shipping dynamics, as I have, you will see that it is impossible to ship 80% waste. Even the worst exporters, and I don’t want to defend them, have to ship 60% good material at worst. Most recyclers ship 70% good – not something acceptable.

But the E-Steward approach which you advocate is a war on drugs approach. It caricatures Africans and Asians in an offensive way, and turns international technicians into a cartoon. In February, when your blog was posted, BAN actually accused a manufacturer takeback program – a factory in Indonesia which MADE a large percentage of the TVs and monitors (read the back of your display unit) of being a “wire burning village”.

I beg you to take the time to research the issues, and to do a follow up on the EPA’s Responsible Recyclers (R2) standard. BAN has criticized it as a ‘lesser’ standard. But a standard where no factory in China or Indonesia or Egypt etc., no matter how good a job they do, no matter how environmental their performance, can EVER be certified or approved, is a clear case where the perfect has become the enemy of the good. I hope you will consider running another post which uses actual numbers to get down to the differences between BAN on the one hand, and EPA, UNCTAD, ISRI and WR3A on the other.

Robin