On Tuesday, 16 electronics recycling firms announced that they have signed a pledge to uphold stricter standards for processing electronic waste, including old computers, cell phones, televisions and monitors that contain hazardous materials such as lead and mercury.

While these recycling outfits only represent about 10 percent of the market, environmentalists hope electronics manufacturers, the federal government and consumers will follow the recyclers' lead.

"We hope the pledge will really set the standard for how electronic recyclers operate their business," said David Wood, organizational director of the Computer TakeBack Campaign. "We hope that attention around it will raise the performance of other companies that are not presently signers."

The 16 recyclers have agreed to prevent hazardous electronic waste from ending up in landfills, prevent the export of waste to developing countries, and stop using prison labor as a means of dismantling and recycling old computers and other electronics.

The pledge, called the "Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship," was developed with environmental organizations like the Computer TakeBack Campaign, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and the Basel Action Network.

The groups developed the pledge in response to startling results in a report called "Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia," which the SVTC and BAN released last year. The report found that 50 percent to 80 percent of e-waste collected in the United States is sent for dumping by recyclers and brokers to developing countries like China, India and Pakistan.

"We have a major e-waste crisis in the United States, and the solution has been to export it to China and other countries," said Ted Smith, SVTC executive director.

Hazardous materials from these junked computers and discarded gadgets are polluting the environment in these developing countries and causing great health hazards to those who live there, environmentalists say.

"We saw operations where they were using open vats of acid to extract the gold from the chips, and then throwing all the residue into the river," said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN.

After the report's release last year, the environmental groups realized they also needed to do more to encourage consumers and businesses to patronize recyclers that can dispose of the electronic waste safely and humanely.

The problem was that "we couldn't find one recycler who didn't export at that time," said Puckett.

Hackett Electronics in San Jose, California, is one of the companies that signed the pledge. The company dismantles old computers, resells the parts and recycles anything that is no longer usable.

Lead-bearing materials like the glass in monitors are removed and sent to lead-recovery plants. Chips from circuit boards are recycled; what's left on the board is sent to a smelter for metal recovery, said Mark Levitt, Hackett's vice president of operations.

"We try and get as much as we can out of an item," Levitt said. "We want to be able to attract the environmentally conscious consumers and companies."

While companies like Hackett Electronics have pledged to be more conscientious about disposing of e-waste, the problem continues to plague developing countries.

Though China banned the import of discarded computers and electronics, The Washington Post recently reported that the practice continues.

"The (U.S.) government is doing nothing," BAN's Puckett said. "It's the only developed country in the world that doesn't have a prohibition on exports of hazardous waste to developing countries."

For its part, the Environmental Protection Agency says it's working on the problem.

"We think we've been very active in dealing with these issues," said an EPA spokesman. The EPA's efforts include developing an international program for better disposal of old cell phones, providing assistance to Asian nations in dealing with e-waste of both domestic and import origin, and proposing rules for the proper classification of handling and transporting of cathode ray tubes found in computer monitors and televisions, according to the spokesman.

"We're limited by congressional statute in what we can do in controlling the export of hazardous waste, but we've done what we can," the official said.

Meanwhile, states like California, Wisconsin and Washington are among about 20 or so that are working on legislation to address the electronics-recycling problem.

In California, Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford) is working on a bill focusing on "producer responsibility" that would require companies to develop a plan to provide recycling options for their customers.

"The goal right now is to safely manage this material so we minimize public health and environmental risk by setting up a safe and convenient collection program," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a nonprofit group working on the issue with Sher.

Companies that use prison labor to refurbish old machines are another facet of the problem, according to the environmental groups.

"As long as there are cheap and dirty options, we're not going to be able to build the high-end, market-based infrastructure that we need," the SVTC's Smith said.

"It's basically captive labor, where there is not a lot of concern for safety and health," he added.