Dell's use of prison labor article

From the New York Times....

June 27, 2003
2 PC Makers Given Credit and Blame in Recycling
By JOHN MARKOFF



AN FRANCISCO, June 26 - The nation's two largest personal computer makers,
Dell and Hewlett-Packard, handle recycling of the waste from computer
products in remarkably different ways, according to a report by
environmentalists released today.

The report was prepared by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a group that
also focuses on health issues, and the Computer Take Back Campaign. It
commended Hewlett-Packard for using "state of the art" practices in
partnership with an expanding commercial recycling industry, while
criticizing Dell for using low-cost prison labor in association with Unicor,
an industrial prison system within the Justice Department.

The report was issued on the second day of a series of meetings now being
held by the Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to set standards
for recycling consumer electronics and computer technology parts.

Until last year, most electronic waste, from products like television sets
and computers, had either gone directly into landfills or been shipped to
Asian countries, including China, India and Pakistan, for recycling.

The environmental organizations said that the extensive use of the prison
system by Dell and others is a significant obstacle to the creation on a
profitable recycling industry. "Our interest is in building a high-quality
recycling infrastructure in the United States," said Ted Smith, executive
director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. "There are two obstacles to
that: one is the export industry, which sends materials to Asia, and the
other is the growing reliance on prison labor."

The director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' program disputed the
conclusions of the report and said that seven prison factories handle only
about 36 million pounds of the billion pounds of equipment that he estimated
are disposed of annually in the United States.

"There are over 500 recyclers in the United States, and we're not a major
player by any means," said the director, Lawrence M. Novicky, general
manager of the Recycling Business Group for Unicor.

He said that the California Environmental Protection Agency had inspected
Unicor's installation in A****er, Calif., as recently as Monday and found no
health violations.

The environmental report commends a nine-year effort by Hewlett-Packard, in
partnership with Noranda, a Canadian mining company that supports plants
recycling 3.5 million to 4 million pounds of electronic equipment a month in
Roseville, Calif., and Nashville.

At the same time, the report - titled "Corporate Strategies for Electronic
Recycling: A Tale of Two Systems," and available on the Web at
http://www.svtc.org - is sharply critical of Dell's decision to rely
significantly on prison labor.

It notes that inmates who work at the prison recycling operation are paid 20
cents to $1.26 an hour and are not protected by the Fair Labor Standards
Act.

The authors said they were permitted a tour of a recycling operation at the
A****er prison, but prison officials would not allow a California state
health and safety expert to take part. They also said they were not
permitted to speak with prisoners. Only after four months of complaints, the
authors said, did Unicor agree to allow the state to inspect the
installation.

The report criticized Unicor's "primitive" practice of manually smashing
leaded monitors, which it said exposed workers to toxic chemicals as well as
potential injuries.

It cited a letter from an A****er prisoner, who wrote: "Even when I wear the
paper mask, I blow out black mucus from my nose every day. The black
particles in my nose and throat look as if I am a heavy smoker. Cuts and
abrasions happen all the time. Of these the open wounds are exposed to the
dirt and dust and many do not heal as quickly as normal wounds."

Dell Computer disputed the accusations in the report, saying that the
recycling operations met environmental standards and that the prison
population benefited from them. "Our goal is keeping all of our recycling
offers as low cost as possible," a spokesman, Bryant Hilton, said. "Unicor
is part of the answer."

He added that the work program was voluntary, not forced, and that inmates
who took part in it had a 24 percent lower recidivism rate than the rest of
the prison population.

Dell officials also disputed the contention that the prison labor recycling
effort undercut the formation of an American recycling industry. "There is
currently not enough capacity for electronics recycling in the United
States," Mr. Hilton said. "Unicor is not driving anyone out of business."

Both Hewlett-Packard and Dell have been increasing options for consumers to
return old computers as well as using the programs for marketing purposes.
Hewlett began a program last year, agreeing to pick up computers at a home
or place of business, and Dell started a similar program in March.