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The Prison Industrial Complex
by Alex Mendelsohn
The Federal government is recycling: in prisons. I'm not talking about ex-convict recidivism here; I'm talking about electronics recycling. Did you know the Department of Justice runs an electronics waste program in a number of Federal prisons?
 Unicor, a government contractor run by Federal Prison Industries, handles the work. FPI, founded back in 1934, makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year doing electronics recycling in prisons.
While this may seem like a good thing when you consider the mountains of toxic waste created by cast-off consumer electronics (over 100,000 PCs are discarded every day), the Unicor e-waste recycling program is under fire from prison guards and staff. And prisoners.
Tons Of Toxins
Inmates involved in recovering a variety of precious metals and materials are exposed to lead, arsenic, selenium, beryllium, cadmium, mercury, and hexavalent chromium. They’re also exposed to trichloroethylene, PCBs, dioxins, and PVC plastics. These hazardous materials include carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive and developmental toxins.
Critics say Unicor doesn't protect prison workers and staff from exposure to these toxic materials. Prison workers are handling these toxic components without proper techniques, adequate ventilation, or protective clothing.
What's more, prisons want to keep inmates employed, so automated handling procedures that would speed recycling and lessen the need for human intervention, aren't widely used.
Human Rights Violations
One organization fighting Unicor is the Center for Environmental Health. CEH works with the Prison Activist Resource Center. Staffed entirely by volunteers, PARC's goal is to expose human rights violations behind prison walls, and to advise prisoners and family members.
A PARC partner is the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. For its part, SVTC is also engaged in research, advocacy, and grassroots organizing. A similar group is the Computer TakeBack Campaign, a coalition of organizations promoting sustainable practices in the electronics industry.
A recently published report examines the e-waste recycling programs run by FPI under Unicor. The report noted that Unicor processed 44 million pounds of electronic equipment in a recent year, making it one of the country's largest electronics recyclers. "It's prices are tough to beat," noted a journalist quoted in the report.
If you go to Unicor's Web site, you'll be exposed (pardon the pun) to an inviting home page, replete with abundant use of green coloring, toothy smiles, Earth Day video links, and positive verbiage. The company claims it offers "high-quality, cost-effective and high-volume capabilities and immediate capacity to OEMs and companies that provide products under Federal contract to U.S. government agencies."
Unicor goes on to say "Federal Prison Industries is looking to expand our long-term partnership opportunities to commercial customers, military OEMs, and other government agencies that can commit to and benefit from an alliance with our Electronics Business Group.
“We understand the federal agency and military procurement process, and can expedite procedures, making it easy and convenient to do business with us. We have the capability to handle any production job, large and small in our technically advanced facilities."
Imperiled Captives
Compare that with a statement from an inmate "employed" by Unicor, and I'll leave it to you to determine where the truth lies. "During the normal course of operations in this factory," the inmate said, "finely milled particulates were spewed into the factory air. No air samples were taken of the main warehouse, and no safety precautions were taken to alleviate the hazards to workers. Federally mandated material data safety sheets for chemicals weren’t available for review. The health of hundreds of workers is imperiled."
An insidious part of all of this is that, ultimately, the detrimental health effects of inmate exposure to toxic materials in e-waste are passed along to taxpayers, not Unicor.
What are your thoughts on this issue? Please write me at amm at en-genius dot net, or post your comments on our blog.
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