Fall 2000
New Perspectives to Protect Our Health
compiled by Leslie Byster
For nearly two decades, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has tirelessly worked to ensure that high-tech development does not adversely impact community, worker or environmental health. Since the high-tech industry is the engine driving not only the national, but also the global economy, SVTC decided to broaden its mission to foster sustainable and cleaner production, greater corporate and government accountability with a global vision of protecting environmental and economic justice in Silicon Valley and throughout the world.
As the global reach of the industry increases, so do our networks. We are building new alliances and strengthening old ones.
SVTC continues its work with our partners in Europe who are vigorously defending the Waste from Electronic and Electrical Equipment, (WEEE) Directive that will require computer electronics manufacturers to phase out persistent, bio-accumulative toxics and assume physical, legal, and financial responsibility for their products at the end of their consumer life.
In past issues of SVTC Action and on our website we exposed tactics by the US trade associations to weaken the WEEE initiative through relentless lobbying of the US Trade Representative. We organized in Seattle at the WTO and brought obsolete computers for recycling to Microsoft to highlight the imminent problem of growing piles of computer waste.
Through our Clean Computer Campaign, SVTC continues to work with our European partners--European Environmental Bureau and the Northern European Alliance for Sustainability-- and other groups in the US to maintain the integrity of the WEEE Directive and prevent it from being furthered weakened. As a testimony to our effectiveness, a September 2000 story by Inter Press Service uncovered a document presented at a high-tech conference in Europe on industry strategies for dealing with non-governmental groups.
The industry continues its fervent attacks on the WEEE Directive. [The following is excerpted from a 10/9/00 ENDS Daily news release.] “US firms in new attack on EU electronics plans”. The main association for US companies operating in Europe has made new criticisms of two EU draft directives aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of electrical and electronic equipment. The EU Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce claimed that both the electroscrap (or WEEE) directive and a directive restricting the use of hazardous substances in electronic goods (ROS) would impede fair trade.
American firms have been fighting these initiatives. Two US trade associations (American Electronics Association and the Electronics Industry Association) have called on Vice-President Gore to assist in defending the industry’s interests against the EU.
The EU Committee claims that the ROS directive would be an explicit barrier to WTO trade rules because its proposals to end the use of lead and toxic substances are not based on full risk assessments. The WEEE would also likely inhibit free trade because its financial obligations would “create a disincentive for non-EU based companies” to enter the EU market.
Trade v. Public Health
This is not the first time that “lack of “risk assessments” claim has been used to justify the continued practice of damaging activities and to prevent the adoption of health protective activities. In fact, the previous versions of the WEEE Directive contained much stronger health protective provisions but were weakened by industry lobbying for the “scientific holy grail of certainty” supposedly provided by risk assessments.
Two new books published by MIT Press, Pandora’s Poison by Joe Thornton and Making Better Environmental Decisions by Mary O’Brien, recently reviewed in RACHELS Environment and Health Weekly (#704 & 706 respectively and excerpted below) describe “a fundamentally new approach” and new paradigms for environmental and health protection.
“Risk paradigms” (according to Thornton) tell ‘regulators which problems are important and how to handle them’. They do not adequately address the issues raised with chlorinated chemicals, other persistent and bio-accumulative toxics like lead and mercury addressed in the WEEE and ROS directives. The “risk paradigm” aims to establish “acceptable exposures” one chemical at a time. This mindset assumes humans and other living organisms have a threshold of exposure below which there is no harm.
As O’Brien asserts out in her book, risk assessment is a very powerful tool. It provides “cover” for virtually any potentially damaging activity anyone wants to take. It is used to justify “acceptable levels of toxic chemicals in our drinking water” and exposing workers to toxic chemicals. The cumulative result of this “risk-based decision-making is a severely degraded and stressed global ecosystem.”
Using an “ecological paradigm”, as proposed by Thornton or an “alternatives assessment” as suggested by O’Brien, one gets an entirely differently perspective.
An ecological paradigm recognizes the limits of science, that scientists can never completely predict the impacts of individual chemicals. The proper response to this inevitable scientific uncertainty is to avoid practices that have the potential to cause severe damage, even in cases where there isn’t scientific proof of harm. This is similar to the precautionary principle but goes a step further.
The precautionary principle doesn’t delineate specific actions to undertake, so Thornton proposes 3 supplementary principles: Zero discharge (eliminate, rather than allow the release of substances that persist or bio-accumulate); Clean Production (redesign products and processes to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals) and Reverse Onus (the burden of proof to show a chemical will not cause harm is shifted to those want to produce or use the chemical.)
Using the “alternatives assessment” model, “all potentially environmentally degrading activities, public or private should be subject to public scrutiny of alternatives.”
Both Thornton’s and O’Brien’s paradigms provide new ways of looking at environmental and health protection.
The WEEE and ROS Directives, if allowed to pass without further weakening by the electronics industry and their trade associations, might be an opportunity to see these new paradigms in practice.
The Clean Computer Campaign and the call for Extended Producer Responsibility are gaining strength and momentum. There is also a need for consumers for demand that electronics manufacturers take back their products. SVTC is working in partnerships with consumer groups and others to make electronic take-back programs a reality in the US.
Leslie Byster is SVTC Communications Director and works on Trade and the Environment
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