Cascade Asset Management, a Madison-based recycler of electronic equipment, with which Progress Through Business works, has joined with the Basel Action Network and the Electronics TakeBack Coalition to prevent the dumping of toxic electronic waste in developing countries and local landfills. establish a certification program for recycling so-called e-waste.
Known as the e-Stewards initiative the program will be the first independently audited and accredited electronic waste recycling program. The certification program will also prevent the use of prison labor in recycling and the unauthorized release of private information from computers that are recycled.
“Currently, the truly responsible recyclers in the US and Canada face unfair competition from the thousands
of unethical, so-called ‘waste recyclers’ in North America that would more accurately be called ‘waste
shippers,’” said Neil Peters-Michaud, CEO of e-Steward Cascade Asset Management. “We strongly support
a certified, audited program to separate the legitimate recyclers from the low-road operators.”