January 2008

• BAN participates in the Nokia’s Corporate Responsibility Stakeholder Days, in Helsinki, Finland and gives talk on cell phone recycling and the global “Pachinko Machine”.
  


• BAN participates in the intercessional working group on shipbreaking of the International Maritime Organization in Nantes, France.
  


• BAN issues press release warning North American consumers that wish to discard post-Christmas electronic equipment replaced by gifts, that most recyclers are exporters and to use e-Stewards.
  


• BAN assists in providing a section on the INFORM film: “The Secret Life of Cell Phones" which is released this month.
  


• BAN is featured in New York Times magazine article entitled the “Afterlife of Cell-Phones".

February

• BAN tips off EPA to the export of the SS Oceanic (aka SS Independence) after it left San Francisco Bay in a likely illegal departure. Issues press releases denouncing export and alerting Hawaiian authorities. Provides EPA with best evidence of PCBs.

March

• BAN attends Mobile Phone Working Group (MPWG) and Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment (PACE) meeting in Geneva.
  


• BAN sends in written comments on US Federal e-Waste Legislation concept paper.
  


• For first time major news outlet targets US commercial ship export illegality and responsibility of the Maritime Administration in Christian Science Monitor Article featuring BAN entitled: “Aged Ships a Toxic Export”.
  


• The Intercultural Movement for the Environment (MIE) hosted a film screening and discussion of Exporting Harm and the Digital Dump, Montreal.
  


• Victory! -- EPA files lawsuit against GMS, major US based cashbuyer of ships for scrap for illegal export of SS Oceanic (aka SS Independence.)

April

• BAN issues press release warning consumers in major media markets against massive North American Earth Day Electronics Free Take-Back event organized by 1-800 WEGOTJUNK, when they refuse to ensure that the program’s recyclers are not going to export the waste. Story makes banner headlines in Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
  


• BAN intervenes in European Union legislative process via MEPs to ensure that framework directive does not make new definitions for by-products which would have the effect of exempting waste exports.
  


• Major Release! -- BAN’s website is featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show for her EarthDay broadcast as the location to find out what to do with your e-waste. 17,000 new visitors arrive at our website as a result.
  


• BAN attends MiMeR/Boliden corporate foresight seminar on electronic waste and metals smelting, 22-23 April in Lulea, Sweden.
  


• BAN’s Jim Puckett gives lecture as part of Henry Luce Speaker Series at University of Washington.
  
  
• Earth Day articles in PC World and MSNBC online on e-waste is published featuring BAN and the e-Steward’s program.
  
  
• BAN attends launch of the first e-Steward in British Columbia – Free Geek Vancouver and speaks at press conference.

May

• Audubon’s May-June edition runs an excellent article on e-Waste featuring BAN and promoting the e-Steward’s program.
  


• BAN speaks at special seminar on the ISO standard for shipbreaking on legal obligations that may be encompassed by ISO certification in London.
  


• BAN attends and speaks on the NGO Green Ship Recycling Standard, at the Lloyd’s Register conference on ship recycling in London.
  


• BAN presents the film Digital Dump to the Rausing Trust staff in London.
  


• BAN attends board meeting and AGM of NGO Platform on Shipbreaking in Brussels.
  


• Major Victory! -- After several years of campaigning, the ship the Otapan is properly pre-cleaned of asbestos, and other hazardous wastes before being delivered from Netherlands to Turkey, BAN as part of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking was instrumental in this precedent setting achievement. BAN issued the “Otapan Principles” as part of the release.
  


• BAN visits China as part of ongoing investigations.

June

• BAN appears and is quoted in feature Newsweek article regarding shipbreaking the US export of the SS Oceanic.
  


• BAN attends the 9^th Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention in Bali, Indonesia and presses strongly for early entry into force of the Ban Amendment. Organizers open the conference with a short film prepared by BAN on e-waste.
  


• BAN holds a Basel Convention side event on electronic waste, and shows a new short film from the Philippines e-Waste situation as well as an update on the status of the Chinese hotspot of Guiyu.
  


• BAN’s Richard Gutierrez conducts side event on Japan’s Economic Partnership Agreements and their affront to the Basel Convention.
  


• BAN participates in the shipbreaking side event of the NGO Platform at COP9.
  


• BAN’s Jim Puckett delivers a keynote speech at the concurrent Ministerial level World Forum on Waste Management for Human Health and Livelihood.
  


• BAN issues press releases, domestic and internationally, blasting the US for intentionally allowing practices that violate the laws of importing countries in their new R2 (Responsible Recycling) guideline. BAN issues critique of that guideline.
  


• BAN issues press release on final day of Basel meeting decrying the lack of progress on the Basel Ban Amendment.
  

July

• BAN conducts two day visit to Brownsville, Texas ship recycling facilities ESCO Marine, International Shiprecycling Limited, Baybridge, and All Star Metals.
  


• The Electronic’s TakeBack Coalition of which BAN is a part, announces release of a Sense of Congress Resolution sponsored by Texas Congressman Gene Green which calls for a ban on the export of e-waste from the US.
  


• BAN is proud to announce that Redemtech, a major US e-waste recycler has been the first participating Founder of the new e-Stewards Partnership to advance our "Pledge" program to a Third-Party audited system. At the same time BAN has contracted certification expert, Matthey Wenban-Smith to advise the development of this new program.