IRI’s General Manager, Lee Salvatore Echiverri, was again invited to be a lecturer at the pre-conference workshop of the E-Scrap 2008 Conference and Tradeshow held last September 18-19, 2008 at the Renaissance Hotel and Spa in Glendale, Arizona. This is the 3rd international recycling conference where Mr. Echiverri was invited to be a lecturer.
Mr. Echiverri’s lecture was part of the module on “Exporting in the Electronics Recycling Industry: What you should knowâ€. Speakers in this module were Bob Tonetti of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Sarah Westerveldt of the Basel Action Network and Robin Ingenthron of American Retroworks Inc.(http://www.e-scrapnews.com/) He spoke about the advantages of leveraging lower labor costs in developing countries in order to maximize the recovery of plastics and metals from electronic scrap. Although he acknowledged that controls had to be put in place in order to avoid polluting the environment in these developing countries, he advocated that it was better, from a global perspective, to maximize material recoveries through manual dismantling of electronic scrap. This is in contrast with the mechanical processes being employed by recycling operations from developed countries.
Participation in international conferences is part of IRI’s advocacy to be involved in matters involving the environment especially in the areas of education and information sharing. By participating in this conference, IRI hopes that environmental advocates and stakeholders in the recycling industry will consider the global impact of their activities, from the reduction in mining activities brought about by the increase in material recoveries, the provision of more employment opportunities to the population of developing countries, to making available to developing countries technologies which otherwise would be destroyed or disposed of already.
Click on this link to view a copy of Mr. Echiverri’s lecture.
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