According to an activist source, groups like the Basel Action Network (BAN), which monitors the international movement of hazardous materials, and the Electronics Takeback Coalition are pushing for a new bill banning e-waste exports, since legislation prohibiting e-waste exports that is currently pending in the House, H.R. 2595, has become “watered down” with too many exemptions.

The push comes following an EPA rulemaking modifying the procedural controls governing the import and export of hazardous wastes for recovery among countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Activists have called the rule “inadequate” because it focuses primarily on regulating SLABs.

EPA Jan. 7 promulgated the rule, which amends the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) to require export notification and the consent of the importing country in order to export SLABs. The requirements take effect July 7. EPA’s rule is intended to amend agency regulations to comply with a 2001 decision by the OECD Council requiring member countries to manage the transboundary movement of a host of OECD-listed hazardous wastes. Relevant documents are available at InsideEPA.com.

But BAN says EPA’s rule falls short of the legally-binding OECD Council decision because EPA is avoiding regulation of scores of substances on OCED’s “amber list,” many of which “are far more dangerous and voluminous in their flows” than SLABs, the group wrote in Dec. 1, 2008, comments. These other wastes include sewage sludge, solid waste incinerator ash, asbestos and dioxin waste.

While OECD allows countries to refrain from regulating its amber-listed wastes “on an exceptional basis,” the United States “has made the exception the rule,” BAN claimed.

BAN also argues that EPA’s new rule fails to note that the 140 countries that have signed on to the Basel Convention -- which bars the export of hazardous wastes -- are unable to accept SLAB and other hazardous waste imports from the United States, which is not yet a party to the convention. As a result, depending on whether a SLAB-importing nation is a Basel signatory, EPA’s requirement for seeking an importer’s consent “is at best an unnecessary churning of bureaucratic paperwork, and at worst a form of entrapment proposing an illegal activity,” BAN said in its comments.

One activist source says that EPA’s attempt to strengthen SLAB regulations is “too little, too late,” and shows a “double standard” because “while they’re getting tough on SLABs, they’re much less of a problem” than other streams of electronic waste (e-waste), such as lead- and cadmium-containing circuit boards. “How are we going to be respected internationally if we just cherry pick what we want to do?” asks the activist source.

As a result of EPA’s actions, the source says activists are ramping up their push for e-waste legislation, seeking a new bill to replace H.R. 2595, which remains stalled in the House Energy & Commerce Committee after losing environmentalists’ support.

In addition to activists’ criticism, battery recyclers have assailed EPA’s new SLAB export requirements as being weak and potentially ineffective because they would not mitigate the harm of exporting SLABs to nations ill-equipped to handle them in a safe and environmentally-sound way.

“Although imposing notice and consent requirements on the export of batteries will give those nations an opportunity to refuse consent to exports, because of economic incentives, many developing nations will likely consent to receipt or shipments of spent lead-acid batteries despite their inability to manage [them],” the Association of Battery Recyclers wrote in Dec. 5, 2008, comments on the proposed EPA rule.

Despite these concerns, a battery industry source says that battery recyclers “do not object to prior notice and consent” for SLABs.

Manufacturers, meanwhile, have supported the new EPA regulations, which garnered praise from companies like Dow Chemical and Johnson Controls during the comment period.

An EPA spokeswoman says EPA’s decision to focus on SLABs stems from concerns expressed by a number of countries -- including Canada and Mexico -- regarding U.S. shipment of SLABs without prior notice and consent, in addition to a January 2003 report from the U.N. Commission on Human Rights that documented a number of problems associated with uncontrolled management of SLABs.

But according to a recycling source, in addition to expanding the new export requirements to other RCRA hazardous wastes, EPA should look at strengthening both import and export requirements for toxics that are governed under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). “RCRA and TSCA are artificial categories -- they reflect differences in regulation but not in whether a substance is hazardous or not,” the official says.