The reason: fear that those old televisions and computers might be dumped half a world away and end up poisoning people.

The city has no evidence the lone bidder, Recycling E-Scrap, is doing anything improper.

“He may be doing everything aboveboard,” said Chris Pearson, chief of the city’s Solid Waste Division.

But months of questions and follow-ups about how e-waste would be disposed of ended with the sides divided over what assurances are reasonable. The city is warehousing scrap electronics until a recycler is hired.“They were wanting me to guarantee where it was going after I sell it to a customer, and I can’t do that,” said Jack Jones, the company’s owner. Some of Jones’ customers do business in China and Vietnam, countries known for electronics dumping, and he said what they do there is their responsibility, not his.

Pearson said he and the city’s lawyers want to be sure Jacksonville’s waste isn’t part of a global trade that ships electronics overseas to be stripped of valuable materials in unsafe, environmentally harmful conditions.

“I’m just not comfortable,” Pearson said. “The response we’ve gotten is, 'if someone’s paying me for it, I’m obviously not dumping it.’ I can’t accept that.”

The exchange reflects the murkiness surrounding a large part of the electronics recycling industry.

Mountains of obsolete personal computers, televisions and videocassette players have been shipped to Third World countries as salvage during the past 20 years. At the same time, generations of new equipment and tighter controls on American landfills have raised pressure on cities and companies to find reliable means of disposal.

The United Nations tried to limit international waste dumping through the Basel Convention, a treaty negotiated in 1989. But the United States never ratified the treaty, meaning it’s not enforceable here.

America does restrict exports of scrap cathode ray tubes, the lead-laden bulky screens that for years were standard equipment in televisions and PC monitors. And governments around the country have increasingly asked recyclers to explain where the waste is going.

Jones said he stopped exporting electronics four or five years ago, as the practice became more controversial.

His Web site advertises his business as an earth-friendly way to handle waste, with “100 percent no landfills ever.” His notarized pledge to not export broken or non-working cathode ray tubes appears on another page.

Promising what others do is a different matter.

“If a foreign company or U.S. customer wish to purchase working equipment … it is entirely their responsibility,” Jones wrote to Pearson’s office. “Please note, we are allowed to sell working items and let them handle all the export rules and regulations.”

That answer brought quick criticism from an anti-dumping activist.

“So it sounds like they are saying they don’t export, they just give it to others to do. This … is equally despicable even if true,” e-mailed Jim Puckett, head of the Basel Action Network, a group that tracks e-waste sent overseas.

Large numbers of worn-out electronics pose a hazardous waste problem because of the volume of lead and other harmful metals they contain, which often come in contact with workers.

To avoid having waste from Florida’s cities add to the problem, the Department of Environmental Protection set up a certification process for recyclers. It was meant to help communities that got state recycling grants, said Linda Frohock, a department spokeswoman.

Jones won state approval in 2001, and has a letter from the state posted on his Web site.

Frohock said the state doesn’t consider that a current endorsement, saying the approval process should be repeated every two years.

When he bid for the city work in January, Jones offered to charge the city $10 apiece to dispose of about 4,000 televisions, and handle other electronics without charging, or paying, anything.