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May 28, 2009 7:17 pm US/Eastern
Environmental Group Attacks Recycling Fundraiser
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
It's a fundraiser for local charities, but it's under attack from an environmental group.
The problem is claims about fake recycling scams that are doing more harm than good.
That can be hard to understand when you look at the fundraisers.
They sound like a win-win situation. You have old computers and monitors lying around.
You donate them to a charity, the charity gets money and the old electronics don't clutter up the landfills, but some say that's not what's happening at all.
Starting at 10 a.m. Thursday, the computers started showing up, along with monitors and fax machines, radios and speakers. They are donated by a steady flow of Make-A-Wish supporters.
"It's the kind of stuff you keep around because it's got value and it works," explains Ken Doerbecker of Wexford. "You don't want to throw it away, but to do something good for somebody else. I thought it was worthwhile."
It's called E-cycle for Wishes. For the next four days at Cranberry Mall, you can drop off your old electronics at no charge and know that Make- A-Wish is making $5,000 for every 100,000 pounds of old electronics it collects.
It sounds like a good thing all the way around, but an environmental group is accusing the company who is supposedly recycling these old electronics of toxic dumping, of taking electronics from rich companies and dumping them in poor countries.
That environmental group is Basel Action Network or BAN and is charging the recycling company EarthEcycle with running a free recycling scam.
EarthEcycle is owned by a former Allegheny County employee Jeff Nixon.
Nixon denies the allegations, saying he finds value in e-waste, sorts old electronics and sells them. He claims to carefully check the backgrounds of buyers no matter where they are.
So what about the Make-A-Wish fundraiser? Make-A-Wish says that it did due-diligence when first approached by Earth Ecycle, made inquiries with the EPA and the DEP setting up the event and that the event will continue.
"You think you are doing good and then you hear this and you think maybe I should just throw it in the trash" said Jeff Fernald of Bellevue.
The Department of Environmental Protection said a concern was raised and it did do a site inspection for an earlier Humane Society fundraiser but found no violations of Pennsylvania law.
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